Redemption
by TastingLatte
Summary: Mey-Rin's past isn't one she wishes to remember, and when it comes back to haunt her, she finds herself turning into the scared girl who was rescued. But one thing grounds her above all - Sebastian. Can she really face the past and be the strong woman she has become, she desires to remain? Or will it be too much and she cave to the fears? Mey-Rin x Sebastian UST/lemon
1. Chapter 1

**This was written as an attempt to not have a smutty, but a simple girl and boy ust relationship, to explore Mey-Rin's past, to explain how and why she views Sebastian the way she does. I always imagine she is so happy to be a maid since her past was something terrible. And this story has it's terrible parts. And so much ust and so much lemon, I should put a label on it. This story began as a "what if she was dead… but wasn't" kind of moment, and it spiraled. Enjoy the adventure into Mey-Rin's past, present, and future.**

 **And a fitting way to ring in a New Year!**

There was very little about her previous life she cared to remember. But she remembered it all, nonetheless. It was a blessing and a curse, her perfect memory for faces and places. Now, as she slipped between the two row houses, she cringed; it was more than three years ago and she had done the same, except a lot more excited then she felt now. Now, her mission was not really a mission, rather a chore. She was picking up her rifle that had been damaged in the last fire fight at the Phantomhive Manor. In that time her employment situation had also changed. Drastically.

"Mey? Dear, child… is that you, Mey?"

Mey-Rin cursed under her breath as the bell above the door tinkled, and she turned, looking beside the shack she was entering. Damn, George Havis. The moment that she looked at him a flash sizzled in her mind.

"George," she answered cooly, as if nothing mattered, nothing at all. "Life treating you fine?"

"Ha, well now it is. Common, baby, a bit of loving for me? For old times sake - make sure you are still alive and I am not in heaven, yet." He staggered a bit, awe and wonder on his face, his eyes hungry for something entirely else.

She shook her head and turned to look at the sliver of light she was letting into the gun smith store. "I don't think so George. I'm rather in a hurry."

"Ah, well, maybe you can come back and take those fine clothes off and we can revisit those quick moments you enjoyed so much."

Mey-Rin pegged him with a cool stare. "No, George, I don't think so. I am much better than that now."

"Ho, ho, ho! A real working lass now," he said, ambling closer to her. She shut her eyes for a moment and calculated how much she could get away with and be still back for the coach Sebastian was sitting atop, parked down the road. He didn't know she had slipped out the door when her new young master had left for his errand.

"George, I need to go and get my rifle, and if you are still here…"

"You wouldn't put a cap in me," he snarled, now almost in her space. He placed a hand on the door and yanked it shut. "You wouldn't want to mess me up, to not be able to give it to you rough and steady." He pushed her against the wall and drank her in like she was the meat her body used to be for most of the men in this part of London. There was very little she cared to remember about her previous life. "I can be quick, but you, Mey, have been gone a while. My body needs a bit of that tender flesh around it. I need a bit of that feisty life you always had ready to give me. Alive and well, you are, alive and well."

"I highly suggest you go down to the docks where the prostitutes are plying their trade, then, sir."

Mey-Rin turned her head, back toward the door to the smithers. She cringed; Sebastian had found her. How much had he heard? How did he know she was not sitting in the carriage?

"Mey-Rin, please proceed to your destination. The man and I will handle this situation."

"Yes, Mister Sebastian," she muttered and ducked under George's arm and hurried into the darkened room. She held her breath and listened as George yelled at Sebastian to leave his "beautiful young thing" out of his business. She imagined Sebastian was calmly examining him, his cool eyes missing next to nothing. Like she did when she was defending the Manor. Her hands flew to her head; her heavy glasses were in her hair!

"Ma'am?"

Mey-Rin snapped back and saw a young man standing by the counter, a bolt in his hands and a cleaning cloth in the other. She took a deep breath and felt the calmness wash over her. Gun, ammo, grease, powder, explosives, and the tanginess of freshly fired bullets, all filled her mouth and lungs.

"I am here to pick up a rifle that was dropped off a week ago. Phantomhive," she said. She started as the wall behind her shook a bit and she turned, seeing in the dirty window Sebastian and George having their hands around each others collars. "Oh dear," she said, turning to watch.

"If that is your crew, ma'am, I'd advise you not to bring the weapon out of this home."

She turned back and tried to nod, another slam of the wall making her squeak. "Is there a back door? I know these alleys like the back of my hand. My… my driver, he knows to follow me in a few moments," she said a bit louder. She hoped what she said was true. Sebastian had a unique habit of being where he was needed most. Now, she needed him back in the carriage as soon as she got there.

She paid for the rifle, and clutched it as the young man lead her back to another door. "Be careful, miss."

And she found herself in the alley, and alone. She looked up and squinted, the tall row houses blocking out the sun a bit, and she turned and quickly walked back to the main street, hoping that Sebastian was alright and George, well, she didn't think of George beyond that he was a piece of her past she would be glad to not see in another three years, or more.

"May I carry that package?"

She yelped at the smooth voice of Sebastian coming beside her. She turned and saw him perfectly. His face was a bit smeared with dirt, accenting his high cheekbones, and there was a bit of dirt on his collar. She yanked her glasses from her head and pushed them roughly on her nose, wincing at the all to heavy metal frame that pinched her nose, making breathing and talking difficult.

"If you wish," she squeaked.

She next felt a guiding hand on her back, making sure she did not collide into anything. She felt like a small child being led, but the person who led her was not just anyone, it was the Head Butler to the Phantomhive family, her young master being the only member. She pulled her thoughts away from the heat on her back and the gentle pressure it gave to steer her around objects that she barely saw. It was pleasant, and she filed it away. These moments too were remembered, these were the heated moments of her current situation she wished to have. If only she could have only them. If only they could erase the past ones.

She squeaked when Sebastian's outline stepped in front of her a bit and made her bump into his arm. The sound of quick horse hooves and a rattling carriage wheel made her grip his arm tightly, as if it was coming for her. This part of London was not nice to people who dressed in as fine clothes as she and Sebastian were in.

"I'm sorry, Mister Sebastian," she said prying her hands off his arm. "It just frightened me when you… and the horses. I'm so sorry!"

"No need to apologize, Mey-Rin. It is I who should have paid closer attention. Please forgive me, I was thinking of other things and not your safety. I am at fault."

"But you did think of my safety," she insisted as they crossed the road. She looked up and saw nothing but the black coat of his uniform and his dark hair against the sky. "You almost got run over because of me."

"But I didn't."

She fell silent and climbed back into the carriage. He handed her her package and she watched for a moment as he hesitated, like he wanted to say more, before closing the door. He leaned into the windowless carriage and said, "Please, one thing, if I may."

"Yes, Mister Sebastian?" she said, unsure what he wanted.

"If you have an errand in this part of town, please let me accompany you."

All she could do was nod. He did not request that she leave the task to him. He had said he would go with her. He trusted her abilities to keep herself safe. As she felt the sure weight of him sitting into the drivers box, she slipped her glasses off and leaned back into the cushions.

Her life before was nothing to dwell over, but her mind briefly flickered to George. If he was still alive, and was able, he would tell the former network, whatever remained of it, that she had been spotted.

She had been released from the sure grips of the executioner.

She was alive.

She stuffed her hand into her mouth as she gave a small cry of fear, the realization of everything that she had built, had been built for her, would be torn apart if she was not careful. She wasn't careful - she had talked to George. She had dropped her rifle off at an old smither whose father had helped her when she was still a lone wolf, working with men who took her as a lamb. The part of town she had gone into was full of men who had gladly turned their back on her as soon as they had their fill of her body. Of her unique ability. Not one had stood up for her. And when she was about to die… she shook her head. It was in the past. Not too distant anymore, she bitterly reminded herself.

And she wiped her tears away, replacing her glasses as the carriage stopped to pick up her young master. Now, they could come after her new life.

She gripped the repaired rifle. She watched as her young master slid into the seat opposite her. She glanced out the door, seeing the shape of Sebastian.

She would break it over any man's head who dared to come near her new life.

The new life she wished she could erase the old one with.


	2. Chapter 2

Anthony's touch brought a shiver to her skin. He smiled and kissed the bumps on her arm.

"Mey," he sighed, bringing the covers back up. "God that was amazing."

She turned and bit her lip, pulling her night gown down under the covers, rolling over to face him. She tried to smile. He was a bit rougher this time. But he had said he would give her a new rifle. And she needed a new rifle, so she agreed to go to bed with the boy who wasn't much older than she. And, deep down, she liked him a bit better than some of the others who just came and took her, enjoying the fight.

"When will we know the next job?"

"In a day or so, George said."

She shuttered. George was back from almost being hung. Again. Case was dismissed. Just in time.

"Aw, Mey, common, he ain't that bad. He gives ya food and shelter," Anthony said, wrapping his wirey arms around her. "And he gives us an income. We can run away soon."

She smiled. She faked it. Wanting to run with the boy who thought grabbing her hand first and dragging her to his bed would prevent the others from taking her when she ventured to the bathroom. To her own room to get fresh clothes. When she snuck to take a bath in the middle of the night. Mey had grown used to being taken by men. Taken by their rough hands. Taken by their words of promises. Bartered by the rivaling members of the gangs who vied for the same killing jobs.

And George knew it all. He was their leader of sorts. Had the connections. Had connections to the rich men who wanted to be with their mistresses so they hunted into the shadows for those willing to take a few shillings to do the job. Double if there were more to eliminate. And the money would trickle down to the one who pulled the trigger, if they were lucky. And they would be even luckier if the job was clean, the newly widowed man said nothing, grieved and buried his dead wife, or lover, and went on with his life. Luckier if they did not get caught.

But Mey got caught on her last job. After she got her new rifle from Anthony. After George made her pay for her bullets in the back alley, telling her how he loved her body on his and how he would be waiting, ready, to have her again when she came home. Paying for her room, with the only commodities she had been taught was valuable: her body and her excellent sight.

She had scoped the man in the top hat. She had made sure everything was perfect. She had pulled the trigger, just a bit, breathed and steadied herself. She never thought about taking a life, she thought about getting food. A place of her own. Of a life that did not consist of men groping her and demanding her on her back. Of kindness and of love - real, genuine love.

And she pulled the trigger.

And she watched the man go down.

And the blood pool, enough to make sure he was dead.

She had turned, ran swiftly, and had tripped over a dead rat in the dark alley. It sent her sprawling. Her gun left her hand. Skidded into the street. A lantern lighter was walking down the street. She tried to crawl in the muck and grab her gun before he saw her. Before he saw the gun.

But she got caught. And she was placed in jail. And she was put on trial. And she never saw one of the men ever come to court. Never claim her as one of theirs to protect. Never saw them in the crowd as she was lead to the hanging platform. Never saw one push her out of the way, kill the men who had held her captive in a different way for three months.

But what she did see was a man in a smart black tail coat. What she did see was a man who looked at her with interest. What she did see was a man who stepped in the copper's path and point to her. What she did see was the man give the copper a bag of money and turn towards her.

"You are free to come with me," he had said. Swiftly he undid her chains. He looked at her and smiled. "You can leave this place and be free. I advise you not to run away to your old life; the police have agreed to hang a woman who meets your description. The woman you knew, the life you knew, is going to be dead in a few hours."

She had stared at him. He was talking to her like he wanted to help her. He asked her name.

"Mey? That is beautiful. 'Little Warrior,'" he said, standing and smiling. "And you seem to stand up to you name."

She had followed him. Climbed in beside him as he whipped the horses into a trot.

"Mey-Rin," she had said quietly.

"What is that?"

"My new name." She looked at him and took in the way his eyes seemed to dance as he turned and looked at her. "It means Little Warrior, dignified. You are offering me a new life, and I finally have dignity among people."

She had seen him smile and nod. "A strong name for a woman as yourself. Your new employer will be pleased. He is very kind, very dignified himself, and is also in need of protecting. He will give you everything you need to become the new woman you wish to be," he said, the words tumbling smoothly, captivating her already. Strange men and their words were not new, but the way he sat, he softly tilted his head when he looked at her - like he was listening to her. He steered the horses down another road and gave a small laugh and turned his soft smile to her. "Mey-Rin. Yes, I like that very much."

A new name, a new beginning. A new place. A new… everything. As they pulled up to the manor, so huge she swore it never ended, she finally realized she never got the man's name. As his gloved hand encased hers, ready to help her off the wagon, she stilled and placed a hand on his, making him raise an eyebrow.

"Kind sir, what is your name?"

He stiffened. "I too have a new name." And he helped her out, standing, with her hand in his and he bowed. "Sebastian Michaelis."


	3. Chapter 3

Mey-Rin scrubbed the pot and felt her hands scrap across the steel wool, sending small slivers into her skin. They would take time to dig out before she did her patrol. She winced as she ran the hot water over the pot and burned her fingers; her clumsiness was getting the best of her. George's eyes on her, even knowing she was alive, haunted her as she blinked past the pain.

"Mey-Rin," the smooth voice of Sebastian said behind her.

She yelped and the pot clattered to the ground. She cursed; the pot would have to washed again. She had not done the floor yet.

"Apologies," he said, stooping beside her and picking up the pot before she could. He caught her wrist and turned her hand around. "You scrubbed the pot and yourself."

"I'm sorry Mister Sebastian. I wasn't paying attention, and thinking, and was startled, I'm going to be late," she said quickly stringing all of her words together as she often did when he was close to her.

His hand stilled her as he pulled her to sit beside him. He took her glasses off and set them on the table she and her fellow servants, Baldroy and Finnian, sat at for meals. He took a look at her palms and she could see the fine silver specks clearly.

"Stay here, I will get the tweezers."

Before she could protest, Sebastian was gone. And then he was back even as she lifted her eyes once more from looking at her hands.

"Stay still," he muttered and bent over her hands, small in his one large palm, and picked out the fine threads as quick as he could, making them not sting too much. She winced a bit, but bit her lip, digging into herself. Into her old self that took up patrol. Into her steady breathing-, no pain-, no emotions-, self even as his fingers delicately brushed over the raw skin to make sure he had gotten all the threads.

"Done," he said, looking up. She bit her lip and took her hands from his quickly. His eyes were beautifully red tonight, she noted. "Can I accompany you to the roof tonight? I think some quiet air will do me some good as well."

"I am not going to enjoy the air, Mister Sebastian," she said, perhaps a bit too harshly. She closed her eyes and looked away. "Please forgive me. I have… not had the most pleasant of dreams as of late."

He frowned and she found herself once more looking at him, his long fingers now around her chin, on her cheek. "Because of the man who tried to solicit you," he stated. "I should have…"

"No, please, don't think anymore of him," she quickly whispered. "It was a long time ago. A whole other life time ago. He… did hurt me, but not anymore. You and the young master made sure I could start anew. It was my fault for going back to a place I thought was safe. It wasn't," she said, her tears now slipping down her cheek. She was angry at herself and she didn't want to think about what could happen if George or anyone found out she was now a servant at the Phantomhive Manor. A flicker of memory made her cover her mouth and stifle a cry.

"Mey-Rin," Sebastian said, instant concern running through her name as he said it. He gripped her shoulders and peered at her. "What is it?"

"I put the rifle repair under Phantomhive."

"As we do with all our repairs," he noted.

"But not at this shop, Mister Sebastian. Never at this shop. I am so stupid! George could be finding out about me even now!"

And suddenly her body was enveloped in his arms. Mey-Rin was stunned and then clung to the labels of the butler's coat, the one she had gripped when she righted herself up when she tripped, the one she had grabbed when she was pulled to safety from being almost struck by the carriage. The one she would hug to her body and smell when she folded his clothes after she took them off the line, pressing them very carefully, and placing them in a wicker basket before his door.

His hand stroked her hair and she felt safe.

Felt needed.

Felt loved.

She pulled back and looked at him, wiping her eyes on the back of her sleeve and blinked. "Will you come up to the roof with me? I… am not sure if I can stay by myself. And a bit of fresh air, well... that sounds like a really nice idea right now."

Sebastian's slow smile melted her and warmed her, and he nodded. "Of course I will, Mey-Rin."


	4. Chapter 4

The breeze was coming from the west tonight and she adjusted a few of her rifles as she checked her perimeter on the roof. The hidden weapons were a combined effort between her and Bard. She would make sure they were working, and he supplied the bullets. A weapons expert in his own right, the cook was always eager to add new pieces to their rooftop armory. She passed a bigger machine gun and chuckled. Bard must have convinced Finny to carry it up the flight of stairs in the middle of the night earlier in the week. She looked at Sebastian and he raised an eyebrow.

"So not something you knew about," she said, indicating the gun.

"No," he swiftly said. "But if it keeps the young master safe, I can overlook the fact it brings the whole aesthetic of the roof down."

"You are too kind," she chuckled. "I'm done on this wing," she added. Her glasses were off and she watched as he stepped over her wires, the ones that connected to a cog machine she had designed that allowed her to shoot the twelve guns on this side of the roof all at once, or in different intervals. His movements were graceful and delicate, well meaning and sure. She caught him looking at her and she ducked her head, picking up her rifle and did the same.

They walked the length of the main hall, checking the water run off spouts, far above the ground, checking the grenade launchers and the few secure, hidden rifles she had also placed.

"I forget how many weapons are up here," Sebastian said as they arrived on the east wing. "A fine amount."

"When you live your life taking lives, you know a thing or two about protecting one. At all costs," she added as she checked the trigger wire on the rifles. She slung the strap of the one she had just gotten repaired closer to her chest. "An assassin knows how to read the lay of the land and knows where the vulnerabilities could come from. I need to make sure no one surprises me." She walked over to where Sebastian stood and smiled. "I'm not simply a girl looking for a life to defend. I am a woman with a few lives to protect."

He smiled and offered his gloved hand, helping her to smoothly and carefully step over the barrier of sandbags, hiding the extra ammo needed to restock the rifles. He did not let her hand go even as they walked slowly back toward the door to the attic, near their own quarters under the roof. He held the door open and let her go in first, descending the stairs quiet as a mouse behind her, her own feet barely making a sound. She stood still at the bottom of the stairs and Sebastian placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Mey-Rin?"

"I thought I saw something move," she said, crossing the hall to the uppermost window of the house. The hall was the same as the three below, except not as well furnished and unpainted. The wooden boards were seen through some of the layers of white plaster that held them together in some places. She peered out and held her breath. The tree tops swayed in the breeze. She looked down a bit more and saw a flash of light. She pushed back and found herself colliding with the strong chest of Sebastian. "A scope."

"Shall we get Baldroy?"

Mey-Rin clenched her hands, her anger once more boiling. "No. I don't want them involved."

"My dear, I strongly suggest -"

"No," she said sternly and glared at him. "If it is my past coming back. I… I need to face it."

He bowed his head and smiled. "Of course. But may I at least offer my services? If it is your past, I wish it to remain in the past as much as you. You simply are not that woman anymore."

"I know," she hissed. But deep down she wasn't too convinced. "If you wish to come, I will not stop you."

"Thank you," he said, seeming to want to add something to the statement.

She shook her head and reached under her maid uniform and yanked the ribbon that was tucked into her garter belt off her left leg and wrapped it around the front of her skirt, bunching it and exposing a bit of her thigh. She hooked it into her apron belt and took off for the stairs to descend to the lower level, shifting into the mode of an assassin, not stopping for a moment to remind her that a man - Sebastian - was standing near. Of course she had done the same exact movements so many times before, she was sure he hardly noticed. Or if he did, he was too much of a gentleman to stare or even acknowledge the exposed flesh.

She wanted to sneak into the woods if at all possible. The element of surprise was her best tactic. Her eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness and she grabbed the case of ammo Bard kept by the back door bushes. If Sebastian was surprised about that, he did not show it on his face as he hurried behind her. They moved quietly and effortlessly. Mey-Rin forgot that she was with Sebastian, the butler, not a fellow man who was trained to be quiet and stealthy. When money was low, George would have her and Anthony go out and pick pocket. She learned how to be quiet and unassuming, something she wished she could do with her heavy frames while she worked to protect and repay her young master. In his house she was clumsy and foolish. Here, in the woods, or on the roof, she was confident and sure. She stopped and turned to watch Sebastian crouch beside her.

"About 20 meters, ahead and to the right. About five feet off the ground," she whispered. He looked and nodded.

"Moonlight off glass," he whispered back. She smiled.

"Good eyesight."

He chuckled a bit and cocked his head. "You are not the only one can do extraordinary things."

She snorted; she had noticed the eclectic and small staff were specialized in defending territory. She and Bard were weapons and strategy. Finny was muscles and loyalty. Sebastian was swift and sure. The young master, the general on the filed, placing them where they needed to be.

"Your plan?"

She turned back and thought. "If it is George, he may not have told anyone, and came himself to see if he could get me. However, if he did say something," she turned back to Sebastian and sighed. "It could be Gregory - he was the biggest guy we had and could choke a grown man in mere seconds."

"Shall I go and see?"

Mey-Rin smiled a bit at him. "You have done so much already, Mister Sebastian."

"Mey-Rin, you are deserving of all of it. Please, place me where I can help you," he said, bowing his head as he did when he accepted orders from their young master.

She put a hand on his shoulder and could feel the powerful muscles twitch under his coat. "Bring him to me."

He lifted his head and she could see his eyes were bright and gleaming. "My pleasure," he whispered, sending a shiver down her back. He got up, liquid in his movements and slipped into the woods to retrieve the intruder.


	5. Chapter 5

Anthony's hand glided up her arm. George's breath labored in her ear. Samuel's legs pinning her down. Gregory's hands in her hair. Davis' mouth on her breasts.

Mey-Rin slammed her fist in the nearest tree and bit down on her lower lip to stop her from screaming in pain. The thoughts and memories were flooding her mind and she wanted nothing to do with them. She wanted a man to love her - really love her, not touch and use her in the name of love. But she was still so haunted by the memories. Even Sebastian's sure and gentle touches, as she tripped into him, as he caught her, as he held her a bit too long, made her wince for fear they would turn and become filled with loathing and hatred, or maybe possession and need. If he knew the full background she would find herself not in his arms as she fell and broke things, but back in the streets, plying her old trade secrets to survive, his eyes not looking at her with interest, but as dirt. She rubbed her hand as the woods moved and she saw an object coming towards her. She readied her gun.

"Mey-Rin," his voice said, before stepping into the small clearing. "I have the man for you," he added, dropping the body on the ground a bit.

An 'ooof' assured her the man was still alive.

"Get up," she said, her boot kicking him in the middle a bit. "I said get up," she growled.

"Shit, that hurt, baby," the man said, clenching his side. "I am recovering from a stab wound, and your man over here is all rough with me."

"Anthony?" Mey-Rin gasped as she fell to her knees beside him. She bushed his now long bushy hair out of his face and tried to see it better in the semi-darkness. She sent a curse to the moon, and Sebastian hooked his arms under Anthony's and dragged him into the open grounds. Slowly trailing behind she saw it was indeed a grown up version of her boyish lover. "What are you doing here? Where is George?"

"In jail if he knew what was good for 'em," Anthony muttered, wincing. He lifted his hand and she saw his side was bloody.

"Sebastian," she started and she saw he shook his head.

"I did not do this, my Lady."

She met his eyes and she frowned. Why was he calling her 'my Lady'? He looked down and helped Anthony sit up more.

"God, tell your man to let me lay down, this hurts more than climbing the damn tree."

"Language!" she spat out of habit. Bard had a horrible vocabulary and she had taken to grabbing a wooden spoon to his arm when he let something loose. She had blushed madly when she let something slip in the heat of battle.

"I heard you say 'damn' back in the woods," Anthony challenged. His face softened and he smiled a bit. "Ah well, a lady at last I see."

She stood straighter and looked him in the eye. She was finally in charge. "Keep him sitting. You need to tell me what you are doing here and then I'll have him lay you down."

"Oh god, so the pain is what you want now," he laughed, and coughed. "Jesus, Mey, fine. I'll tell you - I'll tell you what I heard and why I'm here - but please, I beg - let me lay down on my side at least."

She nodded for Sebastian to let him lay down a bit, but not flat. She saw Anthony breath easier. "Start talking."

"George said he saw you three days ago, in London, by the gun smither we used to go to when we pawned the old stuff. He was so drunk I swore he was having hallucinations, but then he described what you wore," he said, nodding to her dress. "Black dress, apron, hair shorter, a man in black who protected you." He looked up at Sebastian and grinned. "You made an impression on George. He said you didn't hold back on your punches and told him to go see the prostitutes. Not so clean nosed, are ya, Mey?"

She shuttered. "So what, he said he saw me. Why are you here?"

"He wants what you have. A better life. A life where you can disappear into and bring us along for the ride, eh? A life he figured you controlled the gang. Of course that bit he was also wanting to take from you, but, he wanted to see you once more." Anthony shrugged. He licked his lips and the familiar gleam came in his eyes. "Who can blame wanting another piece of your -"

The rest of his sentence was cut off by Sebastian forcing him to sit up. The rest was a long, piercing scream.

"Sebastian!" Mey-Rin spat, as she pushed Anthony to the ground. "The house," she hissed, looking up to see if any lights flickered on in the Manor. She held her breath for five minutes and saw nothing.

Turning back towards Anthony she looked down at him. "I let no man take my body anymore. If I want to, I will give it. But never will I be violated again. You need to leave. I appreciate your warning, but if George is really wanting to come and find me, drag me back to the hell he had me in, control me, bed me, use me, sell me, he has something else coming." She leaned down and got into his face not caring how it looked in Sebastian's eyes. "I am a lady, and am a refined, dignified one. This is my home, and you and your kind are not welcome. Leave before you get stabbed again - by me."

The fear in Anthony's eyes was new to her and he struggled to sit up, rolled on his hands and knees and crawled a bit away. He used a sapling to pull himself up and he looked at Mey-Rin and Sebastian, who was now standing beside her. "You are a monster," he whispered.

Mey-Rin said nothing as he noisily slashed through the woods, crying as he fell on the ground, and soon was a distant sound. Sebastian's arm came around her shoulder and he pulled her tight into him. She glanced up as he turned his head and planted a kiss on her forehead and let out a deep, rolling chuckle.

"I think the young master would be running scared from you if he knew you basically said you were the master of this house and threatened to stab a wounded man."

She smiled and turned to look at him. "Don't cross me," she said, lightly.

"Never, my Lady."

She broke into a wider smile and quickly took a deep breath, stepping back and looking away. She blushed hard. She was flirting with the butler - improper!

"Please, don't hide yourself," he said, puling her head to look back up at him. "You are both the woman who survived the bad moments of life and the strong woman who carved a new path out of a happy future. You live in the in-between, and almost on the other side of your past. Don't hide that from me."

She blinked. Her savior for over three years wanted to know her. He wanted to see her happy. He did not take advantage of her weak moment of joking with the highest servant of the house. Mey-Rin looked at him and leaned into his hand still on her face.

She closed her eyes and nodded slowly. "I will try, Mister Sebastian. I'll try to be the woman you think you see in me."


	6. Chapter 6

**Just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to all you reading/like/bookmarking/and of course commenting. We all are busy, but to be able to escape, and not have to be reminded of how busy we are, well, that's why I love reading and writing so much! :-)**

She screamed. Sitting up she now whimpered into the darkness, gasping as the door to her bedroom flew open and Bard and Sebastian came barging in.

"What the hell is wrong!"

"You are safe."

"What are you doing here, Mister Sebastian!"

"I was walking the halls and heard Mey-Rin scream. I assume that was what made you come in as well?"

Bard looked at Sebastian, and Mey-Rin looked at them both. She clutched the blanket to her and licked her lips, the wisps of the dream slowly untangling from her mind.

"I thank you both," she finally said. Two set of eyes swiveled in her direction. "But I just had a dream. And now I am awake and," she picked up the alarm by her bed. She peered at it. "It's a quarter to six, so if you can leave, I can get dressed and start my day."

They both blinked slowly and Bard cleared his throat. "As long as you are fine," he said. She nodded and he left. Sebastian looked at the half-shut door and back at Mey-Rin.

He stood at the foot of the bed and sighed. "Your dreams of your past have increased since we came back from London."

Mey-Rin tore away from his concerned gaze, and statement. She finally nodded and licked her lips, trying to keep her eyes from watering.

"I can't help but feel…" she paused and blinked the tears out of her eyes. She felt him round the corner of her bed and gently sat beside her. His presence made her jump - so close and so intimate! - but also made her strangely calmer. If her dreams came true - if George materialized before her - she was sure Sebastian would take him once more before he could do anything to her. "I can't help but feel as if my past isn't so distant anymore. The past three years alone have been wonderful. I was healing. I was feeling safe. I could go days without looking over my shoulder after the first six months, and hardly any thought of my past life after that. Even when we were attacked. I knew my skills were useful, to keep us safe. I wasn't protecting monsters…," her voice hitched. "I wasn't a monster, anymore," she finished softly.

Sebastian sighed and moved his hands over the bed spread as he turned and looked at her. "You are not the monster who lives here, Mey-Rin." His eyes were sad and she wished she had kept her mouth shut, her dreams locked away in the cage deep in her mind, deep inside.

It was true - she had been moving past everything and was a new person, riding the thin line of her past and her future, making her own path from both. And now, one man who had seen her, sending her back to the nightmares.

Sebastian reached out and took her bandaged hand. After they found Anthony they had walked back to the Manor, where he gently washed her sore hands, still raw from the steel wool scrubber, and her punching the tree only added to the wounds. He had silently wound a bandage over her hand and had smiled as she thanked him. They had gone to bed early in the morning, both alert for different reasons. Her hand hurt less now, and she flexed it, showing Sebastian's watchful eyes that the two days of healing had made it better.

"Thank you," he said softly. He looked at her and softly smiled. "Thank you for telling me that. I know it's not easy to relive what happened before. I know I don't talk much about my past, and as a whole none of us had a good one to tell." He moved and looked at her fully. "Even the young master is broken like us. I guess we are a group of broken pasts and hopeful futures," he mused. He shook his head a bit. "And you are a bright spot in this house. Always joyful and smiling. Even if your glasses don't make it easy to do your job," he added. She blushed and looked away. "You always push through. Please, don't forget that. Keep living in-between, and I will learn to do the same. You teach all of us to do the same. I know that none of them know the extent of what your past was like - even I may venture to guess wrong - but you are strong. Dignified Little Warrior."

Mey-Rin sat forward suddenly, wrapping her arms around his arm and placing her cheek against the black sleeve of the coat he always wore. Her tears stained the material and she felt his left hand stroke her hair, his body warm and tender as he placed a loving, gentle kiss into her hair.

"Beautiful Mey," he whispered as they sat like that until her alarm went off at 6:15.


	7. Chapter 7

"Defend, of course!" Earl Ciel Phantomhive roared. He looked older than 15 when he stared at Mey-Rin. "You will never have to fear these low lives again!" He turned to Sebastian and slammed his fist into the wooden desktop. Mey-Rin winced. "Sebastian, this is an order - find them and eliminate-"

"NO!" Mey-Rin said, launching herself between her master and the butler. "No, please," she said, a bit more gentler. "Some… someone may still be able to be redeemed. Rescued. Like you did me."

The anger in the Earl's face faltered and he glared at her before sitting back down. "Disregard the last order, Sebastian."

"Very well, my Lord," Sebastian said. Mey-Rin felt as if she should shrink into the carpet and crawl back to her place in the kitchen she had been asked to come from. The tension in the room lessoned when the young master waved them both out of the room and he wearily looked out the window.

"I'm so sorry," she squeaked as she and Sebastian left. "I didn't mean to stop the young master. But if… Anthony seemed to be concerned for me. And after almost four years."

Sebastian's form stepped in front of her and his hands on her shoulders made her stop walking. He plucked her glasses off and placed them in her hair, her preferred spot to keep them when she worked alone.

"My dear, you should not apologize for voicing your fears. You are correct, Anthony was concerned for you. But he left with fear in his eyes. Which, my sweet maid, you put there. If he went back to George," he spat the name, "he would be wise to emphasize that the past where he thought you could be controlled was just that, in the past." He tilted her chin up again and smiled. "You are a new person - Mey-Rin."

"A new name and a new life," she said quietly. "Like you."

He nodded a bit. "Yes, like me."

"You said if I needed to go back to that part of London, you would go with me."

He nodded.

Mey-Rin bit her lip and looked away, back to the closed door of their young master's study. "Would you be willing to go with me tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow?"

She looked up at him sharply and blinked. "It was the day I was jailed. It's been almost four years since we met."

"I hadn't kept up with the date, I'm sorry," Sebastian said. He too looked at the closed door and Mey-Rin wondered what was going through his mind, behind the mysteriously beautiful red eyes. "Time has no meaning to me sometimes, and it just passes."

"It also is said to heal wounds," she added. The irony was in her voice as she crooked her head and looked at him again. "Will you be free tomorrow?"

He blinked and looked down at her. "Of course, my Lady, I will be."

She blushed. "You are the head butler, Mister Sebastian. I am not a 'my Lady.' Honestly, I... I don't know why you say that."

"And?" he asked as if there was a question to be followed, or answered.

"You don't need to call me that. Mey-Rin is fine," she said, slipping her glasses back on her nose. "I'm nothing in this house but a maid."

As she walked away she swore she heard him whisper behind her. "No my dear, not just a maid. A warrior."


	8. Chapter 8

She slipped on a dress, a simple dress that would make her blend into the underbelly of London. Something her old self would have felt comfortable in. She tied her soft corset and picked a simple hat, stuffing her bright red hair under it. If she was going to wonder around a place she was known three - almost four - years ago, she wanted to blend in as much as possible. She stilled as she opened her bedroom door. Sebastian! She had forgotten to tell him about her plan. She hurried down the hall, head bent and polished her glasses, out of habit.

"Oh dear!" she said as she bumped into something rather solid. Even without her glasses she was beginning to run into walls! Looking up she saw she was not in front of a wall, instead a man, dressed in brown trousers, and a beige top, loosely fitted as if it belonged to a man a bit bigger. "Mister Sebastian," she said, backing up. She looked him up and down, and laughed. "You look like you could be a chimney sweeper. Minus the soot."

"That can be added, if needed," he said, wrinkling his nose a bit. "Not too obvious? I am blending in?"

"I think if I didn't know you, I would be screaming that there was an intruder in the servants quarters."

He smiled. "Good. Shall we be off?"

Mey-Rin took the offered arm and nodded. "Off to the underbelly."

"I think the young master may be a bit disappointed we didn't invite him. He quiet enjoys smashing the criminal element under his heel."

"It's just a surveillance and an information gathering trip," she said. She looked at him and sighed. "It's like the many I used to do before setting up and… well, murdering people."

"In the past, my Lady, in the past," he said gently as he helped her up into the open wagon. "And we will be bringing more than information back. I have a shopping list. I figured we could look like we are doing our daily chores for our master."

"You think of everything," she said, smiling at him. She took the offered paper list and looked at it, nodding. They indeed could find everything on the list, and more. "Mister Sebastian?" she ventured after they turned into the main road towards London.

"Yes?"

"If we don't find anyone who is worth saving," she started and turned towards him. "Will you carry out the young masters order?"

She watched as Sebastian's impassive face twitched as he thought. She often wished she could go around doing her duties without the burden of her glasses, being able to watch his face as he seemed to flit about picking up the pieces after the three of them - Finny, Bard, and herself. She had them with her and her fingers glided over the iron frames, designed and given to her by the young master when she accepted his offer to start her new life.

"He told me to disregard the order, however," he finally said. "If it would protect you, I would happily disregard that last order."

She shook her head, now pulling out her glasses and looking down at them. The heavy weight a sudden comfort as they were surrounded by the outskirts of busy London. The streets she roamed so many times, doing too many unmentionable things.

"I'm only a maid, Mister Sebastian," she muttered as she put them on, plunging her instantly into the depths of a hazy world. She felt a hand rest on her leg and she started, but it didn't move. Her left hand gently rested on his right and he directed the horse towards the Themes, towards the undesirable parts of the town she used to call home. Towards a life best forgotten.


	9. Chapter 9

**First, thank you to my readers - if you have read my other works, you know this is a different twist. I love my smut, but to delve into the mind.. well, it happens. These characters are just so juicy not to try to prob around! Second, thank you to the lovely reviews, *blushes*. And lastly, sorry for the lack of updates to all my stuff - this year has brought some family losses and issues to suck up my already limited time. BUT, I'm back and hope to carve out my regular time and do regular postings. yeah!**

 _Four years ago_

There was so much lavishness in the house and Mey-Rin, having to remind herself of her newly called self, stood in awe. Her rescuer, Sebastian, stood behind her and she felt him looking down at her a bit. She whiled around and stared at him, his mouth now twitching into a smile.

"I'm sorry, a habit," she muttered. He smiled a bit more. "I don't… I'm not used to men…"

"I shall tell the young master you are here; he was eager to have you rescued."

She watched with curious eyes as the man in black glided up the stairs, so beautiful in his movements, so graceful, she wondered if he wasn't like her - a killer who knew how to move with silence and stealth. It had been an easy road for her to travel, already lithe and nimble. Her extraordinary eyesight was a bonus and she could balance with extreme talent. All which made her both a curse to her father, and a commodity. Her greatest strength had been demonstrated when he sold off to the men who raised her, taught her to carry and shoot a gun. Her gender made her a target as much as she was taught to target others.

She closed her eyes and shuttered; she prayed to whatever there was that the young master was indeed as kind as Sebastian had said he was. Sebastian did not make her want to run away, so perhaps he was a good reader of people as well. She glanced around as she walked in circles, trying to shake the chains of her almost execution. Of her imprisonment. Of her abandonment.

The paintings were tall and dominating, featuring animals such as horses and wolves, one had a small child sitting on a wolf, and eagles seemed to be in paintings as well. A large crest was on the wall, above the double doors she had entered.

"P-o-t-e-n-t-i-a R-e-g-e-r-e," she spelled, trying to figure out what it meant. She only barely recognized the letters. She turned away in shame; she was given to her protectors, as George and his men called themselves, when she was almost nine. She had not gone to school regularly and did not read much beyond individual letters. Ten years had gone by at least and she had not learned how to do much else but write the crude letters of her name.

"Power, control. The wonderful legacy I have inherited," a small boy's voice said behind her.

She was still looking at the double headed eagle crest and now reacted on instinct, whirling around, spreading her thin cloak around her as she crouched and wildly sought for her weapon she usually carried over her back. Now, she grasped at air, and she gasped. She was trapped, no way to defend herself. And a boy was standing at the foot of the stairs, looking curiously at her. The man in black with a slight smile on his face. She gasped and felt instantly ashamed; the boy and man were her ticket to a new life, not her new owners who wished to use her. She hoped.

"My name is Earl Ciel Phantomhive," the boy said. He stepped closer and knelt down, a sigh coming from his mouth as he opened it and offered his hand, clad in a white linen glove, a bright blue ring on his thumb. In his other hand he placed his walking stick on the ground and she quickly looked over the boy, about age eleven. He didn't seem to need the walking stick as he waited patiently for her to reach out her hand and take his. A boy reaching to help her?

She pushed herself up to kneel and bowed before the obviously superior boy. "Please forgive me, Earl! Please! Don't hurt me for my actions!"

"Hurt you?" the Earl said, a shock and curious tone in his voice. "Sebastian?"

"She has suffered some kind of mishandling in the past. I fear at the hands of men," she heard him say. She cringed. He could read her like the book she didn't know she was. She ventured a glance up and saw Sebastian walking over and kneeling gently by the Earl. "Perhaps we should let her adjust before we introduce her to her new employment?"

Mey-Rin bolted up and turned toward the doors. New employment! Surely they would sell her! Sell her body! Sell her skills! She pounded on the doors, rattling them, crying for them to open. She turned wild eyes to the two who now were standing, where they were just looking at her. Mey-Rin screamed for them to open the door, let her go, forget about her… she wanted to go back to London, back to the coppers. Back to hanging. She deserved it. She deserved it. She had killed men. She had cut them down with her expert eyes, with her perfectly placed shots. She had harmed children. Women, beggars, thieves. She was horrible. Horrible!

She was a monster.

Finally her voice gave out and all she could do was whimper in the corner that she had slinked into. Vision was cloudy from all the tears. Body hurt from pounding on the door. Stomach growled loudly for a meal she didn't remember having last. And darkness was finally taking over the Manor, filtering into the great hall. A flickering light came from the stairs and she watched it descend, finally coming close to her.

"My Lady. Mey-Rin," Sebastian's voice came from the darkness and finally emerged as the candle was moved towards him. "If you wish to sleep there, I can bring bedding, but I think you will find your quarters much more suitable."

Staggering to stand she pushed back all the fears and glanced out the window, across the vast entry and the small water fountain. She was in a fine, rich man's house, and she wasn't there to kill any of them. She wasn't there to steal anything, either. She was being shown kindness, mercy. She nodded and Sebastian sighed, a relief, she was sure. Mey-Rin followed him up the grand staircase, her simple shoes, simple clothes, and simple cloak, all wrapping around her and making her so out of place in the grandness of the manor. Sebastian moved slowly, letting her trail two steps behind and finally stopped after the third staircase. He opened a door and suddenly a shaft of light seemed to light the hall up, and half his body.

Mey-Rin stopped and looked at the man who had paid the coppers that morning - really, that morning? - and then brought her to this grand house. Patiently talked to his young master - the Earl - and now was showing her to her room. She took a step and peered into the room. Was it hers? Was it his? She glanced up and caught the sad smile.

"Oh, dear, you have been treated badly a long time," his voice was sad and heavy. "Mey-Rin I promise you will never be hurt by anyone in this house ever. I shall protect you until you know you are strong."

"I am strong!" she spat and turned away. "I am strong," she said a little less sure. She saw a table and on it a plate of meats, beside it a plate of vegetables. And a chair. Empty and waiting. Her stomach growled and she clenched it.

"Please, have your fill, there will be more in the morning if you are still hungry."

She ventured forward and peered again. It was fine and rich and she launched herself on to it, grabbing meat and a carrots with her bare hands. She sank to the floor, chewing and ripping into the food, her thin body bathing in delight of the taste and substance.

"Sleep well, my dear Dignified Little Warrior," she heard Sebastian mutter as he closed the door. She sat staring at it for a while and finally climbed into the seat, wiping her hands on her dress and once more ravishingly tore into the finest food she had ever had in all her life.


	10. Chapter 10

It was another alley, another familiar row of homes, which looked like the other shacks across the street. But these, these were where she had laid her head for so many years, so many years ago. She turned and looked at Sebastian, now a bit dirty yet still regal in his streaked face. She wondered if she too looked as refined as he did, or if she was just sinking back into what she knew.

"Mey-Rin?"

She shook her head and slipped the glasses off her head, placing them back into her cloak pocket, hidden and safe. "That is the house. George may still be doing his dealings out of there. But he may have gotten wise and moved."

"So a good chance he is still there," Sebastian said, amused. "He didn't strike me as a smart criminal."

She laughed. "No, but he knew better than to get caught," she said bitterly. She shook her head. "The past is never as far in the past as we wish."

"No, not when we have to face it."

Mey-Rin sighed and turned and walked down the road, away from the house, dilapidated and in need of a good scrubbing. Like it always was. Like all the other houses. A working neighborhood ran by the underworld, which she had learned quickly enough once she calmed and accepted her new life, her young master effortlessly ruled to keep them in line. Earl Ciel Phantomhive was a broken child, like she was, but was also strong in his desire to keep order and lashed out in mighty revenge when that order was toppled. She loved her master with all her heart; she understood each of his emotions perfectly.

"Are we going shopping?" Sebastian asked as they entered one of the pop-up markets that sat between the homes, in the open spaces large enough for five or more stands to squeeze together.

"I don't know what to do next," she said quietly. "I don't want to be seen by George, or Anthony again." She turned and looked up at him, towering over her by eight inches. "I don't know why I am here."

He took her arms and steadied the shaking fear that was creeping up. "My Lady, you are here to put your past to rest. Once. And. For. All."

There was a dangerous tone and edge to his voice and Mey-Rin sank into it. She wanted his rage, his calm smile, his certainty. She laid her head on his chest and nodded. "Yes, Mister Sebastian," she muttered. "I am the strong woman you think I am."

"Yes, yes you are," he said, once more kissing the top of her head. She blushed, wishing now for that kiss to be on her lips, securing his strength in her to herself.

"A little shopping and it will be mid-day. I know the house will be empty for the boys will be going down to Turners for food."

Sebastian nodded. He let her lead him around the small market and left her back across the street to put their items into the cart he had hidden outside the neighborhood. She had not questioned how he could make it to the cart so fast, she knew he could. And so she waited, behind a pile of trash, eyes on the front door as it opened and out stepped George, his eye still visibly blackened, and Davis hovered in the doorway as well. She swallowed. Davis was missing a hand and he was still angry looking. She closed her eyes and tried to think of the good, the pleasant, not the way his breath was on her body, his hands, touching.

"My dear," Sebastian said, pulling her to his body and wrapping a light hand over her mouth as she squeaked. "You are safe in my arms."

She tried to not let the panic get her as she replayed that same phrase in each of the man's voices as she watched them filter out and become the mob across the street. She _was_ safe in Sebastian's arms. Only in his arms. She turned and hid her face, feeling like the small child who had first been shoved out of her fathers house and into the arms of the very men who had said they would protect her.

"I can't… Sebastian, I can't…"

He tilted her head up and looked at her, his eyes both hard and soft. "Mey, you have done so many things that you should be ashamed of, but Mey-Rin is stronger than all that. You have spent four years gathering your strength and becoming the woman those men," he spat, "took away from you as a small child. You are not helpless. Let me be your strength when you need it."

"I couldn't possibly -"

"I may be the butler of the Phantomhive Manor, and servant to the Earl, but right now, I am a man who wishes to help you defeat your enemies as I do the young masters." His eyes flared and she saw the passion in his eyes even as it was in his voice. "Let today be your stand. Let today be when everyone knows you as Mey-Rin - the dignified little warrior who will burn them down."

Mey-Rin surprised herself by reaching up and pulling his beautiful face down, letting her lips dance over his before she felt his hand cup the back of her head and he moved her into a kiss. A kiss she had dreamed of. With a man she had never thought would exist. With the handsome man who would never hurt her, never leave her, never judge her.

She kissed her knight in shining armor.


	11. Chapter 11

Sebastian handed her a paper and nodded to her as he continued to walk around the untidy home the gangly group of assassins shared. She glanced around again and toed the dirty pile of papers; at least she had kept the filth at bay. She looked down and read the names scratched in George's unsure handwriting.

"Sebastian," she whispered. She winced. "Mister Sebastian," she corrected herself. He stood beside her and nodded.

"I saw," he took the paper and placed it in his pocket. She reached up and wanted to snatch it back but his hand caught hers. "One sheet is not going to be missed. This same list of targets are on a paper in the kitchen. I assume it is a kitchen."

"Does it have a sink in it?" she said with disgust as she moved past him. "Then it is either the lavatory or the kitchen." She wrinkled her nose and turned back to the living room. "Or both. Manky chav's." That earned both an eyebrow raise and a small chuckle from Sebastian. "Oh please," she said, her hand flying to her mouth. She turned away and shook her head. "Please, forgive me."

"An apt description," he said, placing a hand on her back. "Shall we look upstairs?"

"I'd rather not," she muttered even as she climbed the familiar steep stairs. They creaked and she pursed her lips; they had been creaky when she had been there and always alerted the men if she was trying to go to the kitchen to scrounge for some left over bread. She stepped over one and stood in the small landing. The doors to the bedrooms were open and the fine layer of cobwebs and dirt clung to her shoes and bottom of her skirt. She was glad she wore her very old clothes on this mission.

"Not one for cleaning," Sebastian said, wiping his finger over the railing and lifting layers of dirt up. He brushed off his gloves and looked over the place in disdain. "Where shall we go first?"

"This was Anthony's bedroom," she sad, crossing the hall and using a finger to push the door open wider. She stared at the bed and saw the same worn and dingy comforter she had wrapped her body in many nights. The dresser hung open and she peaked in and gasped. "They have someone here," she said, lifting a nightgown out. "Oh," she blushed and shoved it back into the drawer; it was hers.

"Would it be best if I stepped outside?"

"No, please, no, don't leave," she said quickly, crossing the small room and back into the hall where Sebastian stood still in. She looked him over and swore the man was not breathing. She looked around; she wouldn't blame him for holding his breath, the place reeked of cigarettes, manly odors, and gun cleaner. She briefly closed her eyes, the last smell bringing back the memories of her on hills, learning to squeeze the trigger lightly and then with force to propel a bullet into someone's head. "Please, don't go," she whimpered.

"Never," he said, pulling her back to his strong chest. "Take a moment if you need to. I will make sure we have time."

Sebastian's over sized blouse top smelled of raspberries and chocolate, her favorite snack. She breathed his scent in and pulled back.

"George's room - if Anthony was right and he is going to come after me, anything he has would be in his room. And under his bed. He had a loose board there and I saw him place his money in it. Always said he kept his money close." She turned and marched into the open room of her former boss, and torturer.

The walls were a grainy yellow, and there was a strong smell of urine from the corner. She covered her mouth and nose and was grateful for the handkerchief that Sebastian handed her. At least it too smelled like him. She knelt down under the bed and shuttered. Sebastian knelt down beside her and she felt his shoulder brush hers. He reached under the bed, shoving the heavy chains away from the boards and got up and moved the bed to the other side of the room in a shove. Mey-Rin crawled to the bare spot, her knees on the chains and her heart in her throat.

"That one," she said, holding a shaking finger to the floorboard she was sure was the loose, hidden one. She began to reach for it.

His hand slide down her wrist and curled around her fingers in an all to familiar fashion making her look up sharply. "Let me, my Lady. Let me."

She watched as his fingers found the edges of the worn board and lifted it up. He reached in and took out the contents, several stacks of money notes, a few ribbon tied pieces of paper, and a notebook. He flipped open the notebook and brought it to where she sat. She read her name - her new name - and her address - Phantomhive Manor - in the newest entry.

"Sebastian," she said shakily, forgetting all manners. "Anthony was right - he does want to take me back. He… he knows."

"He knows only your name and where you live, he doesn't know you. He doesn't know how loyal your household is to you, Mey-Rin," he whispered, his fingers flipping the pages. He smiled. "I seem to have made it in his notes as well. 'Saw Mey, not dead. Has a man who slugged me good. I wish to kill them.' Ah, a motive."

The lightness in his voice made her giggle. "You are not afraid at all, are you Mister Sebastian?"

"No, I'm not." He looked over at her and closed the book. "I know where my strength is, and a gun pointed at me is not going to make me shrink back. A mere threat written down is just that - a useless threat. I vowed to protect the Phantomhive name, and you, my dear, are one of those who is under my protection."

Mey-Rin blinked and looked at him. "But who will protect you, Mister Sebastian," she said softly.

He replaced the items and the floorboard, moved the bed and chains back and offered his strong hand to her. As he lifted her to stand beside him, he smiled and finally said, "You, my strong, quick, and swift assassin. You and the Phantomhive household."


	12. Chapter 12

**Thank you for all of you who are reading and reviewing. *blush hard* I know if you have read all my other stories, I am rather a very NON-tame writer... and this is a very gentle story. (meaning, there isn't anything inappropriate and blush worthy). I do love this little story - I'm always loving delving into the psyche of our favorite characters with anyone who is willing to listen. So I hope you continue to enjoy this fun dance into Mey-Rin's past, and our favorite Butler's determination to be right there with her.**

Turners was packed, letting them melt into the crowd and blend into a dark corner. Mey-Rin took the seat facing the crowd and door. She had been in many dark corners over her time in London. She was 23, if she counted right, and she had lived almost four of those away from the crowded, smoky, loud, and smelly taverns, but in an instant she felt as if she too still belonged to this part of her past. To the men who gave her looks, cutting their eyes towards Sebastian and narrowing them back at her, before turning and returning to their drinks.

"Two beers," Sebastian said swiftly. "And a platter of cheeses, if you will."

"A fine assortment of cheese it is," the waiter said. She looked at Mey-Rin and huffed. "And some watery ale. Five pence."

"A bargain," he said, leaning into Mey-Rin to talk to her above the din. "Will I have to scrape mold off the cheese?"

"If you get a piece large enough to do so," she said. Her mouth was practically on his ear. She looked at him and looked away. His lips so close she could take them again. "And the ale is, well, decent. Gets you sloshed enough," she added, shrugging. "I think you may want to steady yourself though." He raised an eyebrow and she wanted to just kiss the innocent look on his face as he tried to understand. "The woman was looking to see if I was with you."

"You are."

"No, Mister Sebastian, _with you_ ," she said, emphasizing the words. A blush crept into his cheeks and he turned back to face her.

"I think then perhaps you should not address me so formally." He cupped her chin and pulled her slightly into his space. "Sebastian will do."

And he kissed her, as the waiter placed two cups down and a round platter that fit two rough slices of bread and three pieces of cheese shoved under the bread.

"Your order," she huffed and stomped away.

Pulling away slowly Mey-Rin blinked. "Blimey," she whispered. She had tasted him twice - two more times she had ever dreamed would happen in her lifetime with the man she had steadily and like an idiot school girl, fallen for.

"I concur," he whispered back.

He cleared his throat and pulled his fingers from her face, seemingly reluctantly, and pulled the mugs closer to them and tilted his back a bit. He winced and placed it down on the table. Mey-Rin stared; she couldn't think of a single time he had sat down and actually consumed anything. Surely he ate, Bard had defended, just maybe didn't like to do it in public. She sat back and took her own mug, and tipped it back a bit. She felt the tingle of stale and stout ale flood her mouth and instantly warm her as it went down. She reached for the bread and ripped it into a smaller piece and grabbed a piece of cheese. It tasted fine, for once, and she munched happily on it. Sebastian sat with his mug in hand, looking at her and the crowd.

She saw the men at the far end of the tavern, by the bar, deep rumbling laughter and sloshing of mugs soon took over as some of the patrons left to their manual labor jobs down by the docks. Mey-Rin kept her head down, tightening her hat so her hair was not visible. Her red hair always made her stand out even before her curvy, womanly figure did.

"My dear, still," Sebastian said, his hand on her arm as she fixed her hat again. "Do you wish to leave? We know George and Anthony know where you live. Anthony, and I am sure George as well, mistakes you for the owner of the manor, and my master," he said with a slight smile. Mey-Rin wondered if he found the thought appealing or if it was funny that they had mistaken her for someone powerful.

"But we don't know when. We need to tell the young master, and the others."

"We don't know when the young master's enemies will attack either," he pointed out.

"I want to know, Sebastian. I need to know. If I am going to bury my past, move on, have a future with -" she stopped and turned away. "If I'm going to have any future, then I need them gone." She sighed and looked into her long empty mug. "I want to be seen as the strong woman who walked up to her past and put a bullet in it, putting it down," she turned and looked at him. "Like the bloody dogs they are."

His eyes danced and he pulled her closer, almost touching her lips with his own. "Yes, my Lady. Finally, the fire is back."

And she, for the third time, pulled him into a kiss. She kissed him and stood, turning and sitting in his lap. She kissed him and wrapped her arms around him, feeling his around her waist and knowing, for sure, she was safe in his arms. He would fight for her, if she asked. He would defend her, if she let him. He placed her as high on the list as their own young master of those he would die for. And as she kissed him, her heart exploded.

She would put a bullet into anyone's head who dared to lay a hand on her butler, on her master, on her cook, on her gardener. As she pulled away, her eyes clear and her mind sharp. She looked into the bright red eyes of Sebastian and smiled.

"Is this the woman you wanted?"

He licked his lips and matched her smile. "Yes," he breathed.


	13. Chapter 13

Sebastian had sent her back to the carriage, saying he would find out what moves the group of men were going to make. She flushed and thought about their kiss. Perhaps he needed distance between them and space and time to think, being distracted and so forward back towards her. It was a cover, she remained herself. Nothing... nothing more. Mey-Rin crossed the road and went down a short cut. She needed those things - the kiss, the emotions, the sure arms, the safety. She shook her head and scolded herself.

She was a lady now, not some passed off meat that men had their way with. She had been rescued and taught how to read by Sebastian - Mister Sebastian, she scolded herself - she had been given a place to rest her head, never fearing someone coming in. Even had helped her pick out a lock set to put on her door. Had let her stumble into him, had caught her, had let the new servants, Finny and Bard, know that she was special. Sebastian had done all that. And he didn't have to. She was nothing. She was a gun for hire, a body to take, and a mind to waste. She wasn't worth his looks and his smiles. He… he on the other hand.

"Shut up Mey," she said out-loud. "Mister Sebastian is a kind man who is just being kind. He was playing a role. A role to help me get over my past. He isn't interested in me. I'm a maid now. And I am so happy to be one. And… and it was nothing."

She heard her voice crack and she stopped and shook her head in frustration. Why would Mey not die? Why did her inner broken child not realize that status and rank ruled her life now. Mopping and cleaning were what she had to worry about, not meals and men taking her. She was safe. Safe to dream. Safe to think and have private daydreams and take his hand in public and to kiss him and to want his body on hers.

Mey-Rin hit the lamp post in utter frustration and winced; it was not wood and she hit with her hand that was newly healed. She gasped in pain and bent over letting the pain wash her private thoughts away.

"Ah a pretty little girl all ready on her knees," a voice said in back of her. "A pretty little body who needs a warm man to keep her all tied up in knots. And bed sheets," it hissed now next to her ear.

She turned around and hit him in the groin. She stood and kicked her knee into his face. He grunted and looked up at her. Davis snarled as he brought his one hand up and yanked her down by her hair. "You minger gonna learn about your place once more. George said ya were something all high class and above us. But you forget who took care of ya after your daddy kicked you out for a bit more drink. Ay, you need to be knocked down a peg. Cow."

She yelled and found another pair of hands on her mouth. She kicked wildly and beat Davis in the face even as he twisted her head back and laughed. "Ah the bitch is so active. It makes me want to take out my bell end and ring her little bell right 'ere!"

Mey-Rin placed another punch in his crotch and screamed as part of her hair was yanked out as Davis stumbled back. "Ah you little bitch! Take her to the house. The caverns are nice and cool this time of year. A bit of chains to keep you all warm and ready," he spat. "Sammy - get her nice and good."

And something knocked into her head and Mey-Rin's last thought was about her handsome savior, butler, and the man her heart had secretly been waiting for. She breathed his name as her world collapsed into darkness.

"Sebastian…. Find me."


	14. Chapter 14

It was dark and cold. A bad start to a bad nightmare, and as Mey-Rin blinked she hoped it was Finny who was moving far, close, in her head, all around her, and far away all at the same time. She slowly opened her eyes. Blinking a few times, her vision soon cleared and the black spots were soon settling and gone out of her eyesight, what she could see in the dark. Her arms were wrapped in chains, her legs as well, and she looked down and tried to pull on them. She was able to move a foot away from where she started and was able to go no more.

"Someone," she said. Her voice was dry and cracked. She licked her lips and winced. How long was she out? Her body felt weak and dry. "Help," she tried again, this time a bit louder, a bit more sure. But she heard nothing but the distant shuffle that had roused her. She was sure she was not in the Manor; no one would do this to her there. She blinked again. Samuel, Davis… George and Anthony! She whimpered. If Davis and Samuel were around, Gregory wouldn't be too far behind, and the five men who had taught her and taken her from one life to another, in more then one way, were lurking beyond the darkness.

"Mey," a voice called and a light shone. "You have surprised me, girl." She tried to find a place to run. George. "We heard you had hung, and here you are. Not really dead." He came now into her room, standing a bit away from her, the candle light throwing moving shadows across his face. "You are such a bitch and whore. You ran away. You shag a copper? You shag that man who hit me? I bet he was jealous that I saw you. I would pay for you," he said, now standing before her. "I had to pay a prostitute to be able to stand straight after seeing your ghostly beauty suddenly in my neck of the woods. And lo, you are all hard and soft, and fleshy, a bit more now." He snarled and placed the candle in a holder a few feet out of her reach. The shadows lessened around her and she could see he turned his back to her.

"I tried to get you out of jail, you know," he said. He turned around and looked at her. He smiled and laughed. "The copper said you had a protector, in jail. How sweet was that man between your legs? How did he taste as he made you do the things we taught you to do so well?"

He yanked her hair and brought her to her knees, her arms being yanked, her knees not able to touch the ground because the chains on her arms were not long enough.

"Please, leave me be. I have money - I can pay you to let me go. I have power - that's what you want, right?"

Her face stung as he punched her, making her twist and fight for footing before she tore her right arm out of its socket as she twisted hard. It already was screaming for relief.

"If I wanted power, I'd have followed your sweet face back to where you are now. I had to get the smither a what-have it and got your new name - Mey-Rin - and your new place - Phantomhive Manor. I haven't seen it, but a Manor… my, my, it will be nice to ply your trade and take out your own people."

"Never," she spat as she stood. "Never. I will not do that. I'd die before I hurt anyone at the Manor."

He yanked her by the hair again and held a knife to her throat, an action she had seen him do on men they robbed many times. On men who were stubborn to die after a gun shot. On complete strangers for no reason. "I can arrange that."

"George, really? I'm not into getting with a corpse," Samuel said, now coming in. "As lovely as she is, I like mine warm."

"Just get the information and take whatever you wish. Mey needs a lesson or two in why women don't last long when they run away and fake their deaths."

She glared in defiance as Samuel sneered at her and licked his lips. "I haven't had legs like yours in a long time, and now," he glided his rough hand up her legs, pushing up the dress that thankfully was still on her, up. "Now, I need these back around me as I entertain you with my need." He bucked into her and Mey-Rin turned her head. "And it's a mighty fine need I have for you. Remember that time in the hall? We had to be real quiet and you made no sound as you took me? I do. Oh Mey, I do."

Mey-Rin closed her eyes and felt his hands venture into familiar places, familiar places that had not been touched for four years. She let her tears fall as she felt him take her. This was what she had left. What she never wished to feel again. His hot breath breathed into her ear and he grunted, running his hands over her legs, pulling on her, digging into her.

She thought of the first time she had really looked at the Manor. It was after a rain and she had been in the woods, Finny scared of the water, and delighted at the same time. A rainbow had stretched from wing to wing, seeming to hug the house and she had made Finny look at it, watched as the young boy stood in awe. His mouth agape as he named the colours, so amazed.

"Ah, a good girl at last," Samuel whispered and gave her cheek a rough peck. "Now, on to business. The Manor, how many are staffed there?"

She breathed in and held her mouth shut. She wanted to scream, wanted to yell for Sebastian. The young master - Finny, Bard, anyone…. But she was silent. Her stomach was punched next and as she double-overed, she closed her eyes and thought of the smiling faces she was protecting. She would take the men, she would take the pain, she would take the beatings, and anything else, but she would protect her new life. Her life she deserved. The one she had gone through life dreaming of, never thinking it was possible to be happy, to be safe, to not hurt someone for a little money.

"She ain't talking and I'm tired," Samuel said finally. Mey-Rin blinked and she could see out of one eye, the other felt swollen; she must have blacked out again.

"Ah man, she worked over really bad, Sammy." She breathed a bit easier; it was Anthony. "George ain't gonna like that."

"The bitch started telling me how to cook Indian food. Shit, if I wanted foreign, I'd go to the docks and take me a wench of a woman for the night."

"George needs you, said something about you and Greg getting some powder ready?" Anthony shook his head and came into her view fully finally. "Aw man, Mey, you got knocked good." He reached down and she tried to track his movements and felt a sting on her leg. She pulled back. "It's just water, and you are bleeding, um, down there."

She nodded and he gently continued. She hung her head and cried softly, feeling the blood from a wound over her eye, she figured, being washed away. Anthony stood and moved the candles over to a small bench and dipped the cloth back into the water. He gently placed it on her face and smiled a bit.

"I didn't tell them I saw you and your man. I didn't tell them I went to your Manor."

"Thank you," she breathed. She didn't correct him and felt a bit better as the cool cloth went over her swollen eye.

"I wish you would have told me you had left," he whispered. "I would have come. I still would, if you let me. We could travel - go to Australia like the other criminals and seekers of a new life. Or even America. I hear it's nice. Canada too. I could take you away."

"I have a different life now, Anthony," she croaked out. Her lips were dry again. "I am different now."

He pressed the cloth to her lips and sadly smiled. "A fine, rich woman. You wouldn't want a monster like me. I can't even tell you why there are different forks at the fine tables. I just take them."

She tried to laugh and found herself coughing. She tried to pull her arms towards her but they moved stiffly and hardly at all. She winced in pain as she tried to stand. "I'd take you back with me, if I could."

He met her gaze and he slowly dragged the cloth over her forehead again. "You will kill us when you get out, if you could, wouldn't you?"

Mey-Rin merely nodded after a long moment, searching what she could, of his face, trying to think of anything she would love and rescue of the man he continued to become.

He turned and replaced the cloth in the bowl and stood looking down at the dirty water, bloody and suddenly threw it on the opposite wall. Mey-Rin winced as it hit and made a hollow thud on the stone wall and floor. "You have become a heartless bitch after all."

And she was plunged into the darkness once more as he blew out the candles.


	15. Chapter 15

Her mouth was stuffed with a cloth, water was being poured through it. She coughed. Felt as if she was drowning, having to swallow as quick as quick as she could. It burned. She tried to spit out the cloth, but it was wedged deep in her mouth. Whiskey. It burned. It burned her eyes and throat.

The cloth was removed and next - probably a few hours later, she figured through a slight drunken haze - was fed salty cheese and bread. It was food at least and her stomach was grateful for solid food. A bit of sweet water was given to her and she tried to read Anthony as he gave her the food. He didn't look at her. He didn't speak. He turned and left, once more the darkness surrounding her.

She lost count how many times whiskey and food were given to her, and soon was purely floating, floating on the hazy, drunken, dreams of a life she had wanted. A dancing party, so loud and bright, a man taking her hand and kissing her. Her young master smiling. Her friends throwing her a party for her birthday. A man touching her. A rough kiss and her back on the wall. Rainbows. Soft rain hitting her face as she laughed. A rifle in her hand. A face. A hat. A copper. Money. Hands. Walls. Chains. Lips. Red eyes.

Mey-Rin puked. She spat and tried to get the foul taste out of her mouth. She felt sore and light headed. She retched again and stained more of her dress. She looked down and saw her own mess below as the room was now bathed in candle light. She looked up, the room swimming and hazy.

"He-llo?" she called, unsure if she saw anyone before her or it the flickering candles were the dancing shadows. "H-hello?"

"Ah, awake," a voice said as she watched through half shut eyes and pounding head, someone come from the shadows. She blinked. Gregory. He liked her hair. Had cut it off when she was bad. She was bad a lot when she was alone with her. "A nice change. I thought you liked sleeping off your benders."

"What?"

"Yes, you would forget them all. So many, so much, you are a bad girl being able to take so much and still cry for more. You liked the last round we gave, so we thought a bit of reward," he smiled and brought a cup to her lips. "Just a bit of sweet water for that head of yours. You will soon be floating again. Blissful and needy. So glad that these chains don't get you far; we don't want you hurting yourself as you beg for this sweet, cool, water."

She gulped it. Not sure what he was rambling about, not sure why her body was soon feeling as if she was outside, basking in the sunlight.

She woke up and found herself laying in a bed. A bed of straw, but not chained to the wall. Not chained to the wall but still sore. Mey-Rin sat up and quickly dropped down to the straw again, her world swirling violently. Her body was jerked up and she puked again. She was on her feet and two men were half dragging, half walking her out of the room. Her feet scraped and dragged, sometimes stepping, and the men grunted as they placed her on a chair.

"You would think she would be light," one of the voices said around her. She blinked slowly, and she saw the floor of the old house. Feet, boots, a rug, sounds of dishes. Cool liquid on her lips. And being carried. She felt as if she was flying and her body was not her own. She felt like she could climb the London Tower and feel the breeze and float back to the Manor. The Manor… the large home of her master. Of the mops and brooms. Of the floors that never ended. Of the kitchen and dishes and faces and lawns and trees and… open sky.

She was plunged under the cold water and she screamed. She was dying. She was dying… she… was… dying… and floating again. So free. So freeeeeeeeee.

"Shit I think you gave her too much."

"Serves her right to die on this floor. Jesus, she liked it well enough at night."

"Davis, quite being a pig! She has people who would kill us if they saw her like this."

"They soon will. String her up - I want her tied real good for her stunning return to Phantomhive Manor."

"Can I cut her hair again, boss?"

"Shit, do what you want, Greg. Do what you all want. She will soon be too far gone for this world. The devil can have her broken remains."

 **Ah, sorry for this dark turn... but it will be a tad lighter. And Mey-Rin will be stronger and ready to face everyone again.**


	16. Chapter 16

The wasting sunlight hit her eyes and she tried to cover them. Soon a bag was placed over her head and she was grateful for the block it provided. Her eyes hurt too much to see anything anyhow. Her body was roughly deposited into a wagon and she soon felt every bump and dip that they went over. She didn't care what was happening, she was on fire. Mey-Rin licked her lips, seeking out the sweet taste she needed. Wanted. Needed. Needed. Her head bobbed back and forth as the wagon went over and over and over and over… rocks. Cobbles. Dips. Ruts. It all was felt on her tender body, not so well padded and certainly not whole.

Her mind ran together the voices around her and the conversation, the moments in the darkness and the way her body ached. It was bad. She wanted the water bad. She cried out as the wagon tipped and she was slammed back into the wooden slats, a large, heavy object on her, pinning her down. Another one hitting her legs, making her cry in pain. She felt usually no pain, but she felt as if she was crashing. And then she was crashing. She was crashing and being washed by liquid seeping from her cover. She could taste it in her mouth.

Blood.

Blood.

Blood….

She screamed.

And screamed.

And suddenly her hood was lifted and the dark sky was in view, making her blink. Making her search wildly for what happened. She was laying on her side, now in the grass, her hands and feet and legs and body still tied with rope. And hands. Hands on her. Hands on her legs, crawling up, crawling under her skin. She screamed.

"Mey-Rin," a voice called. She whimpered. She heard it in a tunnel, so far away. "Mey-Rin, open your eyes. Please."

She blinked and tried to see the voice. She blinked and saw a face. She blinked and it was a bit sharper.

Angles. Lips. Eyes. Red eyes.

"Seb-ash-ton," she muttered and let the darkness of her pain and world collide and sink her back into the arms of the pain.


	17. Chapter 17

**A two for two short chapters Friday! Yeah!**

"She is addicted to snuff."

"Snuff?"

"Cocaine, my Lord."

"I know what snuff is, Sebastian," the Earl's voice said, a hard edge and anger tinging the words. "How did she become addicted?"

"I think that's obvious," another voice said, light and accented, amused. "She was associating with a rough crowd."

"She was not associating with a crowd," the butler's voice said. "She was fed it to keep her placid."

"Oh, a good understanding on how snuff is used," the light voice said. "Are you sure you are just a butler, Mister Sebastian?"

"I don't like your tone very much, Lau," the Earl said, sharply. "I kindly thank you and wish you to leave."

"Shall we never mention this exchange until the next time?"

"There will not be a next time," the Earl snarled. "Leave. Or I will make sure that this incident becomes public and how you tried to ruin me and my name by giving me cocaine."

The other man was heard sighing and shuffling out. Heavier foot falls followed. Her bed creaked under the weight of a body sitting. A cool cloth was placed on her head and she tried to open her eyes.

"Don't try too hard, Mey-Rin," the smooth voice of Sebastian came as the cloth was dragged over her hot face. "You are not ready to come back to us fully. Not yet. But you will be. I know you will be."

She sank a bit deeper into her dreams and surfaced a bit as she heard another voice and Sebastian.

"Is she going to be alright, Mister Sebastian? She is awfully pale." Finny. Finny was concerned for her. Mey-Rin wanted to again open her eyes and comfort the boy. He was only a boy.

"She will be fine," Sebastian said. "She is strong. You know she is strong."

"She is very strong and brave. I don't know if any of us would have fought so hard to come back, like Mey-Rin did." His voice hitched and he sounded as if he was crying. "I thought she was dead when I found her under the bodies."

"I feared the worst as well, Finny," Sebastian whispered. She felt his cold lips on her forehead and she sank into the feeling of his presence.

It was a long and dreamless sleep she found herself in. Then there were visions of the men and her body. The men and her in the house. The men and her at the tavern. Lake, river, hills, the weight of… weight of a perfectly balanced rifle, in her delicate hands, ready, ready, ready for her target. And soon it came into view.

Her eyes flew open and she gasped, faintly registering a chair toppling over from somewhere far away and the flying of feet, her door being yanked open. She was panting, and her mind would not let go of the last scene that had woken her. Sights were set. She aimed. She fired.

"Sebastian!"


	18. Chapter 18

The pillows were like a feathery cocoon around her back, which was sore. Sebastian bent down and tucked the new layer of blankets around her shaking body. She briefly looked up, not wanting to see what she had done. She had shot him. She had shot all of them.

But no, she hadn't. Mey-Rin wrinkled her brow. She licked her lips and shivered again.

"Shh, please Mey-Rin, don't speak," Sebastian said, sitting on her bed. The sudden burst of heat around her legs where his body was close, was a comfort. She nodded and tried not to sink into the feeling. His hands came up to her face and the heat spread. "Please stay with me," he muttered, as he brought her head up to look at him. His eyes had the same concern his voice did. He was concerned. For her.

"I… wa-ter."

A glass was offered to her lips and she briefly closed her eyes. A sudden memory of the times her lips were wetted and her body floating. She shook her head suddenly and pulled back. She opened her eyes as Sebastian gently placed a hand on the back of her head, tilting her back a bit.

"It's just water, my dear. Nothing is going to hurt you."

She parted her lips and felt the cool trickle of liquid, tasteless and pure, and she sat up a bit and tried to snake her hands out of the many layers she was under. Sebastian pulled the blankets back and her hands curled over his hand and she drank like a woman whose mission was to find water. She finished and he pulled it back, she licked her lips and they were not dry. He offered a refilled cup and she looked at him as she took it.

"Thank you," she breathed and went back to drinking a bit slower after she coughed a bit up. Her body was not used to this much at once.

His hand was back on her head, stroking her short, chopped, hair, as if he was reassuring himself that she was there, before him, sitting. She handed the glass back and their fingers touched. She shivered again and he shifted away. He looked back at her and they held each others' gaze for a while.

"What kind of knight in shining armor would I be, if I couldn't rescue my strong princess in her deepest time of need?" he said at last. He smiled softly and leaned in and kissed her temple. His lips curved into frown and he pulled back, searching her eyes. "My dear, you are burning up, a pleasant feeling for me, but a horrible one on your body."

Mey-Rin wrinkled her brow as she fought for meaning and then a cold shiver made her wrap her arms around herself. She certainly did not feel warm. She felt cold. Winters in London, no blanket, and hungry, cold. She knew that feeling. She felt a tear slip and Sebastian moved off her bed, making it move again. She watched under now heavy lids as he moved towards the door and opened it, a shaft of light coming into the dim room. She blinked, so tired now, and sank into the pillows, there were two more faces, in the hall, in the door, concerned. She briefly registered them as she once more sank into the sleep of the sick.

"Bard…. Finny."


	19. Chapter 19

A spoon was at her lips. She blinked hard and she turned, fighting to focus, seeing Sebastian again, his coat off, his sleeves rolled up, kept in place by his arm bands. She blinked and opened her lips. A cool watery liquid ran down her throat and she turned. He held a bowl in his left hand and a spoon in his right.

"Good evening, my Lady," he said, smiling. "I'm glad your appetite is returning slowly." He frowned a bit. "You lost weight before I could find you. I am so very sorry about that."

Mey-Rin pushed the offered spoon back and sat up, struggling under the lighter blankets, tugging at how tightly tucked in they were. She glanced down and managed to get her arms free. She licked her lips again and looked up.

"I should not have left."

"I asked you to so I could get information. The fault is all mine."

"I should have died."

The shock and rage that went through Sebastian's face as he turned and placed the bowl and spoon on her night stand made her lightly shiver in delight. And then in fear. He bent down and grasped her face in both his hands and brought his inches from her own.

"Never say that. You don't deserve to die - not when I found you walking to your death, not now. You are something rare and special. You have a gift of being able to see, but you let yourself be blinded - here," he said, placing his hand on her chest. "Please, please open up again and see you are so much more than the dead past. If anything should be dead, it should be the old Mey. She was scared all the time. She cowered in corners and would then beat on my chest, punch me in the face when I came to close. She was used to being mistreated. But you chose to become something new - remember? You gave yourself a new name."

"Mey-Rin," she said softly.

He smiled now and nodded. "Dignified Little Warrior." He pulled back and swept his eyes over her. "I should have known the men would flee and try to find you when they walked out before I could corner them. I should have carried out the young masters orders, no matter they were cancelled."

Mey-Rin placed her hand on his face now and saw shock briefly in his eyes as they met once more. "You are not to blame. The men - all of them - took what they thought was theirs. So many times. So many ways, and then threw me out like I was trash. I never…" she paused and sighed. "I never thought I could find someone who would want the woman I was molded into and let myself become."

Sebastian pulled her tight to his chest, her hunger gone, her chills subsiding, and the small tremors her body now were having were not from the feelings of the drugs slipping once more out of her body, but was because a man, a real man, had his arms around her and there was finally safety around her. A safety she feared was both long lasting and temporary.

She laid her head into his broad shoulder and fell asleep.


	20. Chapter 20

She hated her now daily routine. She used to hate it for different reasons but resigned herself to doing it because she was repairing the damage she had done when she thought she knew no other way. When she had a choice of being used by anyone, or doing what she was told to do. Of being pulled into beds, or shooting a man in the head.

But now, she voluntarily did something to harm her body everyday. She glanced at the box and back up the the ever watchful red eyes. "But I feel fine."

"A smaller dose than yesterday, that is all."

"But I feel fine," she said, sliding back a bit from him. He did not move, only opened the small box. "I can do my duty today. I slept through the night. I don't need this. See?" She said balancing on one foot and touching her nose. She shook her head, not sure why she did that. His eyes did not waver and neither did the box. "Just leave me be, Sebastian," she sighed and tried to push past him. His hand encircled her arm and tugged her back a bit.

"A smaller dose."

"No dose."

"Mey-Rin please. It's been eight hours, so I understand you think you may be alright, but I can smell your body is not."

Mey-Rin peered up at him and looked away. They were in the sun-soaked kitchen and she had been out of her bed for three days, slowly reclaiming her senses, her body, her mind. Her mind... and thoughts. She liked being in her element again, her routine. Her home. But this, this one thing was worse, more humiliating then her glasses. She pinched her nose and shook her head.

"You know that sounds very odd, Mister Sebastian," she said, ducking around him as the door opened and Bard came in. She glanced back and plucked off her glasses from her head and put them back on, blurring her vision and immediately tripping over a wheelbarrow. But she wasn't too surprised when she did not hit the ground and her glasses once more vanished from her face.

"Sebastian," she breathed, and he smiled.

"My dear, please, let me keep catching you, but also help heal you," he said, bring her back to standing. She stared at the little square box he once more smoothly brought from his pocket. A flash of hope lit her eyes and she quickly erased it; it was merely the same box everyday, a little less full, a little less powerful.

She took it and opened it, swiping her finger over the powder. She looked at it and met his eyes. "How many more times?"

"Until your dreams and body shakes stop."

She closed her eyes and saw the flashes of the men climbing on her again. "So forever," she muttered and plunged her finger into her mouth, the sweet taste tingling her body. It was less, it was lessening, it would become nothing.

But as her body seemed to float for a moment and then settle, the sun on her back, her hair up in small pigtails, his hands on hers, taking the box, delicately lacing his long fingers with hers. He was standing, he would watch to see how her face would change and her body would come down to a small hum, less than the previous day. Not more. He would not harm her. She leaned forward, not caring if Finny or Bard came and found her leaning into the man who had rescued her from so much more than just men who trained her to be a killer. Men who made her turn her body over to them. Men who took her and once more got into her head, body, soul.

She pulled back and angrily wiped her tears away. His fingers danced on her chin.

"Don't hide from me, Mey-Rin," he breathed. And then he was gone in a blink, disappearing into the house. She heard the young master yelling and she slipped her glasses on, walking quickly as her impairment would let her, back into the kitchen, taking the tray that had appeared, and walking as steady as possible up the stairs, into her young masters study. The man in black tail coats and her young master were standing by the window, hushed voices and she tried to be quiet as she placed the tray on the edge of the desk. She slide a cup off the tray, and a slice of something red and black. She reached for the tea kettle, and found a hand settling over hers.

"Please, let me," his voice said, clear and without a hint of his intimate whispers of before.

"Yes, Mister Sebastian," she replied, slipping back, slipping back into her small floating haze and she bowed, taking her leave and slipped up the stairs. She stood looking out the window she had seen the night Anthony had attacked, or came to warn her, or scouted... He was dead. She felt it in her bones. It didn't matter.

She held the window sill and tried to find the spot she had seen him, seen the man who had thought he was protecting her. See the man whose face was at least kind. Even in the end he tried to be kind to her. But even he had been turned and was hard. Mey-Rin walked back down to the kitchen, aimlessly wondering and feeling utterly useless. Her past was gone - Sebastian and the young master telling her that the men were dead - and yet it still lingered in ghosts. As she slipped into her chair, her fingers pulling at the lace around her apron, she furrowed her brow. If her past needed to be killed for her to feel safe and move on, like she had done before George saw her, and they were now physically dead, why was her heart pounding so? Why did she not feel lighter and released? She simply sat, hours slipping around her, her friends slipping around her, placing tea, water, cakes, food, before her. She blinked up and saw the dinner lights had been lit.

Her hand itched. It itched for something cold and hard. She was surprised when she opened the door to the roof and saw Sebastian standing at the end of the wing, far away for her to pause and watch how his coat fluttered in the breeze and how the moon struck his left side, making the slightest turn of his face light up in an unnatural glow of the heavens.

"I can leave if you wish to be alone," he said as she approached. She shook her head; no matter how quiet she was, he heard her.

"I should be saying that to you - you where here first."

"Waiting."

"Waiting? On what?"

"On who." He turned and smiled at her and took in her clothes with a small sigh. "You wish to run and shoot."

She looked down and examined her boots, already stained with caked on mud and her legs clad in one of Bard's old pants she had made to fit her. She wore a button up top and rolled up the sleeves, a belt that held her pistol finished the look. The bad haircut Gregory treated her to, made so she could pass as a shaggy haired boy; had done so sometimes when she had to.

"And you wish to join?" she concluded. "But not in your suit, Mister Sebastian," she added, sweeping her hand up to indicate his tail coat. "It will be ruined in the mud and climbing the trees."

"I have others. One being ruined isn't going to make me pause in my quest to keep you safe."

"I am safe; you killed the London men."

"No, my dear, you are not safe," he said sadly. "Your heart's and bodies safety are two different things. I keep the young masters' body safe for my own needs, but his heart is something I can't ever have. It's a wild thing, a human heart," he said wistfully. "Your heart has been waiting to be safe, even as your body has been. And your soul, well," he paused and looked into the space between them. "Your soul will be deliciously whole once your heart is safe."

She drank in his words, not sure what they meant, but sure that they were meant only for her. "I need to run and feel the energy that is in me. I need it out," she whispered after a while. "Care to join me?"

He smiled, his smile all angles and vicious. "Yes," he breathed.


	21. Chapter 21

She ran, as hard as her legs would let her go, as fast as the remaining bits of snuff in her system spurred her on. She laughed as she lept over a fallen tree branch and grabbed another trunk and swung around, stopping as she faced Sebastian standing still, his face in the shadows, delight dancing in his eyes as he looked at her. She stepped closer and stood on her toes, her hands grasping his labels, pulling him down. She placed her lips on his and sighed; the contact was electric. He kissed her back and she felt as if she could fly.

"Mey-Rin," he breathed. "You are on a mission."

"I can't do a mission when I don't have a target," she breathed back, recapturing his lips. She felt bold even as the cocaine was leaving her body, her mind seeking something more powerful.

"Me," he said, standing tall. "You are seeking me."

She laughed and shook her head. "I can't hurt you."

"No, but I am hurting you," he hissed. He melted into the woods and she looked around her. Suddenly her back was hit by an object. She turned and saw him now standing ten feet away, flicking another rock at her. It hit her in the hand as she ducked.

"Why?"

"Because you should hate something."

She ducked as another stone hit her in the arm. "Why? Why should I hate you?"

And he stood in front of her. So suddenly and she stumbled back, his hand holding her off the ground as she tipped back. His face was a snarl as he leaned into her. "Because I failed. I could have gotten you at anytime. I could have found you. I could have kept you safe. But I didn't. I didn't want to for a moment. I wanted the pain. Sweet, and delicious, and deep. Somethings never change, no matter how pretty we dress ourselves. No matter that we wish to turn from our past. That pain is both our redemption into a new life and our shackles of the old past. And I haven't had that drink in a long, long, time," he hissed into her ear. He left her standing alone. The moonlight flashed as the trees above shivered.

She undid her pistol and felt her heart unfurl with the words of his desire. She stilled. She wanted him to be with her - be hers. Like Anthony wanted her to be his. But she could never be his. She was everyones - at least her body was. Her mind, her heart - they were hers. Hers.

Hers to truly give now.

And she wanted to give it to one man.

"I can't hate you, Sebastian," she yelled. "No matter what you say." Her back was hit again and she swung around, her eyes pinning him down and she kept her gun in her hand, by her side. "I can't hate you for wanting what they wanted. For taking something that wasn't yours. For wanting what is yours as well."

"I can take it," he seemed to whisper all around her. She closed her eyes and thought about his hands on her face, on her back, on her waist, in her hair.

"I'd freely give it to you," she finally muttered into the darkness. "I don't want to fear again. I don't want to hate again. I don't want to run away again. I want to run towards something." Her eyes snapped open and she turned around, slowly scanning. She saw his black coat in between the trees, four yards away. She undid her rifle and set it on the ground, crouching and watching as he seemed to dart between the shadows, melting and reappearing, farther and closer. Taunting her. Mey-Rin smiled. Her heart seemed to burst out of the coldness that it had been submerged in. Her heart was being pulled.

"It's a wild thing, a human heart," she whispered into the darkness as her eyes watched him emerge into the open field, far from the Manor.

She picked up her gun and ran. Ran like her life was before her. She opened her mouth and let the scream of her past come out, setting herself free as she ran.

Ran into her future.

Ran into his arms.

Ran into safety.

Ran into the only thing she ever had wanted, but never knew she wanted it - could even have.

She undid her blinders around her heart and ran into the butler.

Ran into the man.

Ran into the life of a free woman who loved the flawed woman before him, even as he was flawless.

"Sebastian!"


	22. Chapter 22

It was the bursting of the sun that made her squint as they sat on the roof, watching the eastern horizon slowly greet the day. She leaned into the strong shoulder and turned into his body.

They had slowly walked back to the Manor, words not necessary as their hands sought each other. And they had climbed the back stairs, not saying anything as Mey-Rin reached up and took his coat off, spreading it on the roof, and laying on it. She looked at him as he knelt down and lifted her up to kiss him, his hands on her back and on her head, holding her in his arms, the slow and building passion of their needs building until they parted. He had held her as she curled into his body, had wrapped the coat around her as she slept, a calmness in her breathing and dreams. When she woke, he was watching her and smiled.

She blinked as the sun hit her eyes and she turned, her legs under her and she pushed up, now leaning over him. Their eyes lingered on each other and she leaned forward, kissing him as he had done her before she fell asleep. Her hands sought his hair and deepened the kiss, her body floating in a different way completely.

"My Lady," he whispered as she pulled away. She looked into his deep red eyes and blushed. Her body was on fire when he called her that. "As much as I wish to stay here, we do have jobs to do."

"Jobs be damned," she said, leaning back in for another kiss. He pushed her and laughed a bit. His breath was sweet as it blew into her face. She blinked. "Sebastian?"

"Yes?"

"Did I take my…"

He blinked and seemed to breath in her scent. "I think all of the drug is out of your system. At last," he said with relief.

She pushed off him and sat up, licking her lips. "Was that real?"

He sat up and cocked his head.

"What I am feeling - what I felt - was that, is it, real?" She shook her head and looked away, her eyes prickling with tears.

"I would not trade a moment of it," he said, his hands on her arms. "You were not hiding. You let me see you. The Mey-Rin who had always existed. The warrior who I have been watching a bit too closely, a little too long, and with a little too much interest, heal and find herself. If last night was a dream, I don't want to wake."

She sank into his arms and closed her eyes. And she felt light as a feather, floating, but grounded in his arms. In Sebastian's arms. In arms of the man she loved, and finally was sure was loved by.


	23. Chapter 23

"You need this behind you," the Earl said, as he reached down and helped Mey-Rin into the carriage. "And burying the physical can sometimes be the best way to do just that. Well, visiting the markers, at least."

Mey-Rin did not trust her voice, didn't trust if rage or sorrow would come out. She looked at the shape of her young master, not as young anymore, not as broken anymore, not as scared. He too had screamed in the middle of the night on occasion, reliving his past, the past she pieced together in those moments she ran down the servants' stairs and into his room. He would whimper and sob, she would crawl into the big bed and hold him. Like she knew how to comfort a scared child. Like she knew how to comfort herself in another form.

"Can you… can we stop at where it," she paused and closed her eyes, even so she couldn't see anything anyway. Her voice was hollow. "Can we stop where it happened?" she finally said. She was proud her voice sounded strong.

"Of course," the young master's voice said, gently. "I sometimes stand and look at the Manor, or wonder into my fathers study and think about what happened…"

She let him trail off. She heard him lean out the window and relay her request to Sebastian, who was driving. They went around a curve, down into a small valley, where she could see the trees thinned a bit, and then off another road, the trees once more thick and blocking out the sun. A fitting setting, she mused. Didn't the men block out the sun for her so many years ago? She gave a small chuckle; when did she get so metaphorical in her thinking?

"We are here," the Earl said softly. "May I?" he asked even as he took her hand and guided her out of the carriage. Her feet were on solid ground and she could hear a stream, in the distance. "I will wait in the carriage," he said. And she heard him close the door, letting her stand in her hazy world, alone.

"Not quiet alone," Sebastian's voice said low in her ear. She found his hand and slipped hers in his protective gloved one. "Don't worry."

She nodded and felt the familiar guiding hand on her back as he walked her down the road, and she felt the ground start to give way as soon the brush was slapping and snagging her dress. Her glasses were lifted and she turned a bit, watching as Sebastian turned her glasses about, looking at them with sudden interest.

"Why do you wear these?"

"The young master gave them to me," she said, narrowing her clear eyes. She looked around and did not see anything that would have indicated a fight or struggle. Did she imagine herself being thrown from the carriage and heavy objects on her? Blood in her mouth?

"But _why_ do you wear them?" he asked again.

She looked back at the man, tilting her head up slightly to meet his challenging gaze. "The young master gave them to me, and I happily take them everyday to remind me of who I am. Who I am now. It hurts and gives me headaches, but I will take them with gladness if it means it keeps me from harm, keeps the memories from haunting me."

His gaze flickered down to the glasses and he put them into his pocket, his right hand protecting them from the outside of his coat. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at her. "You have a habit of not wearing them around me."

She blushed. "Sebastian - Mister Sebastian - this is supposed to be where I see where I was rescued," she whispered. She wanted to run from his curious eyes, from his questioning look, from his knowledgeable small smile. She shook her head a bit and added, "Please, not now. I can't have this memory - this moment - here. I need to separate you and my past."

"But I can keep you safe, here or anywhere," he breathed, his fingers on her cheek. "I wish to do so. Please let me do that."

She leaned into his fingers and closed her eyes briefly. "You know why I don't wear my glasses, why you are the only one I take them off around." She bit her lip as she opened her eyes. He was smiling gently and he placed his arms around her, bringing her closer to him. "I do take them off sometimes when I am alone as well. Not only because of you."

"It's over this small brush," he said at last, his lips once more on her head. She felt his heart beating and his breath was warm on her hair. It was a feeling she wanted to sink into. He let go and once more held her hand. "Are you ready?"

She nodded and went around two trees and an overgrown bush, the road now flat before them. And the broken wheel of a flatbed carriage rested on the ground. A few boards in the bushes. She glanced at Sebastian as she walked further into the small clearing and saw one board sticking out of the tree itself. It scared her, but also made her glad to have the man who may have done that by her side.

"Finny did that," he whispered as she stared. "He ripped the carriage apart as he searched. As we searched, as we hoped you were alive," he said, his hands tightening around her fingers. "I was the biggest monster that night. I devoured the men who wanted you hurt beyond repair. I could not contain myself," he growled and she looked at him, his eyes far away, reliving what had happened.

She placed a hand on his cheek and saw the slow refocus of his eyes as the met hers. "My darling," she whispered. "Sometimes we must be monsters to win." She gently pulled him down and they kissed. In a moment, her mind was flooded by intense feelings.

She felt and viewed the same scene she now was standing in, through the haze of darkness. She couldn't move as her mind was filled with flashes of the night she was returned to the care of her butler and young master.

The moon was out. It was easy to see the wagon, the men, the sack of something in the middle. Her. Suddenly the feeling of flying, of ripping, or throwing grown men like the were dolls, rushed around her body. A body broken. A man screaming. A splinter of broken bones. So many broken bones. And blood. All the men were bleeding. One flashed a knife, and she felt the deep ripple of laughter radiate from her throat, and burst open like the man's chest, talons gripping the heart, and watching the life seep out of the body. The cart was over turned as a man rushed it, sending the vision up into the air, and she could see the terror as the man now looked up, and was no more as the vision fell, quick, decisive, and into the body of the dead. And then her thoughts raced back to the sack, the darkness searched, it frantically called. And running feet, Finny - Finny was staring at the mayhem and smiled, his eyes un-focusing as he too broke another body who tried to slice him. So much death. And then her body was before her, Finny crying as he cradled her half-limp body. But Finny turned and offered the body up as an offering to the darkness, his eyes welling with tears.

 _"Please, Mister Sebastian, fix her."_

And suddenly Mey-Rin wasn't sure if it was the vision or her real body, that was lifted into the sure and strong arms of Sebastian. Her savior. The one who had killed without a second thought. The monster. The monster who looked at her and then walked over the body before him, the crunch of a dead body resounding in her ear. So uncaring for what he trotted over, but so full of worry for what he carried.

And Mey-Rin pushed back. She stared, her mouth gaping and trying to find the words. She swallowed and looked at Sebastian, the human, solid, man who stood in front of her. The one who she was positive had just… given her a vision? Memory? How? How?

Her back hit the tree now two feet away. She started and looked around. There were plenty of red patches and the unmistakable blood soaked ground made her aware that it had not rained in the two months she was recovering. Nothing had washed the evidence of this attack, these men's deaths, away. Only their bodies and the cart, and her, had been removed. She looked back at Sebastian who stood quietly, immobile, his tailcoat fluttering only slightly in the breeze that snaked down the otherwise empty road.

"What was that?"

"A memory."

"How… how did you do that? It wasn't mine."

"No, it was not yours. It was indeed mine."

"So how? I felt like I was in your…" she trailed off and turned to look at the wheel by the tree, the plank sticking out of the tree. "I saw it through your eyes."

"I shared the memory of that night. I wanted you to know how precious you are," he said, and sighed. "How precious you are to me."

Her eyes snapped back to his. There was a dangerous longing in his eyes as he took a step forward. "Please, don't," she said, as he took another step. "Please… what did you just do?"

"I only want to keep you safe," he said, softly. "Not to hide from the beautiful woman you are discovering is deep in your soul. Not to hide from me. Be the woman I saw when I gave you your freedom back. Be the woman who chose to take that freedom and fly. The past is here," he jabbed his finger down, indicating the spot. "But the future is in here," he said, laying a hand now on her heart. He had moved so slowly as he held her gaze, she was startled by the heat of his hand. "And I want a part of that."

"You are," she replied.

"I'm selfish."

Mey-Rin furrowed her brow.

"I want you as part of the future I have too," he breathed. "And this place was where I made my mind up, where I had to bring you someday. Where I had to give you my memories of that night. Show you the monster I am. The real danger and safety."

She licked her lips, his hand not moving from where it rested, gently above her beating heart, so fast now she was sure she was still high. "You are not making sense."

He gave a small laugh and shook his head. "No, I'm trying not to scare you. I am trying to be the gentleman you think I am. But I'm not. I'm a nightmare and a dream you can't comprehend. I'm the essence in those men who took what they wanted. I am the essence of what you fear. But," he tilted his head a bit, "I am also the closest to a perfect heaven you will find here on earth. How is that for not making sense?"

"Sebastian, please," she pleaded. "I don't want to be here anymore. I want to go back to the Manor, please, let me go!"

She slipped past him and then was caught by his strong hands. She panicked - the chains were tight. She couldn't breath. Her mouth flooded with bile and she pitched forward, on her knees. She heaved and cried.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"Because, my sweet Lady, I am the only one who you wish to cleanse your past with," his hot breath now by her left ear. "Because I am the demon of all the past and the angel of your future. You have opened yourself up to me, and now I am repaying you in kind."

Mey-Rin let the delicious meal of earlier revisit her and she found herself blacking out. It was a blissful feeling of how she once sank into the darkness, sank into the strong arms, sank into the wild dream of her man filling her with his liquid smoke and consuming her body, mind, and soul.


	24. Chapter 24

She walked around the Manor in a haze - not a drug-induced one this time. She was just too stunned at what had happened to do much more than scrub the same spot, or polish the same silverware, or dust the same corners, over and over and over… when she came out of her room. Mey-Rin would catch a glimpse of a black tailcoat, or would feel a brush of something going behind her, always too late to see, always knowing who it was. As sometimes she had paused , her hand over the door knob, ready to push the door open, to go down the hall thinking of how nice it would be to catch a glimpse, see him... and yet...

She stood in the darkened servant hallway, looking out the window, a habitual thing she had taken up as she searched her mind and soul. As she made sense of something so senseless. Like her whole life, she mused more than once. The feeling of loneliness had crept in and was slowly taking a hold of her heart. She knew it was unfair of her to avoid everything, everyone, but she… she couldn't help it. There was a demon in her heart. And she shivered at the thought that it may have a name. A name she longed to have never leave her lips.

"How long will you stand in the shadows, Mister Sebastian?" she whispered.

"As long as you wish me to," came the reply. She closed her eyes and drank in the way his voice sent a delicate feeling down into her core.

"What are you?"

"I think you know."

She nodded. "Yes, I think I do know."

"It never was meant to happen like this," his voice now said, barely a whisper, crawling over her skin.

"But you didn't stop it."

"No."

"And you started to want it."

"Yes," he hissed, now his breath curling around her. She turned her head a bit and felt him retreat into the shadows. She turned back to the window and sighed.

"It's an addicting thing, desire. Dreams. Wants," she finally said. "They promise a better life, a better day, a better moment then the one we find ourselves in. A moment of perhaps redemption from that darkness we had let linger in our lives. It's what gives us humans the ability to look our monsters in the face and stop them." She paused again and leaned into the window, the cool glass on her forehead. "Or at least acknowledge that they are not just figment of our imaginations."

"It's a fascinating thing to watch," he said.

"And how long have you watched, Mister Sebastian?"

She felt his fingers trail up her arm, but as she looked, she saw nothing but the deep darkness of the hall. "Many lifetimes," he sighed. "Many times have I longed to share it with someone."

"And why haven't you?"

A small chuckle made her turn. "I have tried, but many have feared the particular desires, dreams, and wants I bring."

She stepped into the darkness, her eyes staring into the darkest corner. "Sebastian," she breathed his name. "I can't be the fearful little girl who let stronger men take what they could. I can't be the fearful little girl who cowered in the great hall when she first came here. I can't be the fearful little girl who cried when she thought she would be separated from your touch forever. I just can't. I just… can't anymore."

She fell to her knees and let the sobs drain her of all energy as she grieved for the little girl who grew up to be her shadow - or maybe it was she, the adult version of that little girl who was the shadow. "Oh, Mey, I'm so sorry I couldn't be stronger for you," she said, her voice raw as she cried. "I wish I was able to shove them off you, so you were not dirty and ruined for the man you longed to have loved you. I'm sorry the man who loved you couldn't protect you - he did… oh god, he did what he thought was right." She wept and held herself, in the middle of the hall, feeling the stronger energy wrap around her.

"I'm so sorry I didn't find you sooner, Mey-Rin," he breathed. "I'm so sorry I didn't do my duty to protect you."

And Mey-Rin sank into the hard arms of the man who had embodied each of the fears and demons and faces and places she hated. She never told him about each time she felt the heat of a man's body on hers, and how she would shake with fear when she saw him in the first months of her new life. She never told him how even the young master scared her and she would run and hide after she broke things. How she begged every night before she went to bed that Sebastian and the young master would not throw her out or give her back to George. How she slowly became confident that they cared for her. How she slowly began to care for them. How she let her mind wonder into a dream of her living her life with them, and then Finny and Bard, and never having to face a single man who wished to hurt her. How she fought so hard every night - still - to keep her breath even when she heard noises in the hall. How she clutched her gun and made nightly rounds sometimes to reassure herself her home - _her Manor_ \- had not been a dream.

But sometimes, when they looked at her - when she stood so ashamed of what she had done in her own attempt to be worthy of them - she knew they knew all the things that were never spoken and only terrified her mind. Her body. Her very soul.

"You are the most patient and kind demon I have ever met," Mey-Rin said softly after a while. She wiped her face on her sleeve and sat up a bit. She laughed. "I must have met a whole bunch in my time. I hope I killed a few," she added darkly.

"Yes, yes you have."

Mey-Rin took in a steady breath and turned, slowly looking into the red eyes of her hearts demon, her hearts sorrow, her hearts protector.

"Will you kiss me?"

His hand gently pushed her bangs away and she finally saw his face, lit up in angles and softness as the clouds moved and the window let in some of the moonlight.

"Forever if you wish me to."

She leaned into the naked fingers, realizing she had never felt them on her skin before. She held his gaze for a moment longer and breathed, "Don't ever hide yourself from me, Sebastian."

And she was sucked into the darkness of his body as he slid all around her, kissing her mouth and pulling her body into his hard and soft one, all at once. She lost all her breath and she felt as if her past finally died, for good, stabbed and shot, and taken away as she pulled her butler into her body. Into her heart. Into her soul.


	25. Chapter 25

She woke in a bed that wasn't hers. Next to a body she didn't recognize. Mey-Rin tensed, a hand was on her hip. Another arm under her waist, curled up, but not touching her body, but close. She looked down and saw the dark brown pillow and sheets she washed on a regular basis. They were Sebastian's. A moment of panic made her look down again, at her body; she was clothed, but in his bed. And his hand, his bare, naked, right hand, was on her hip. His left one twitched a bit, as she sucked in a breath, watching in horror at the long fingers moved, as if he was dreaming of playing a piano. She tried to lift his right hand, but found it hard to move.

Licking her lips, she turned a bit and squeezed her eyes shut as she twisted and his hand now laid on top of her sex, her body tensed as she felt his left on the middle of her back. Scooting towards the edge of the bed, not too far away, she slipped out of the bed and stood, blushing deeply at how his hand had trailed over her body, making her want to feel them again. She took a step towards the door and another one.

"You could have asked me to move my hand."

Mey-Rin squeaked and jumped. She whirled around and saw Sebastian sitting in the very bed she had just carefully crawled out of.

"I didn't mean to startle you."

"Yes you did!" she hissed, walking closer to the end of the bed. "You knew I was trying to leave and - oh dear goodness, this is so improper!" she turned and stopped. "Why did you take me to your bed?"

He raised an eyebrow and glanced down at his bed, rumpled. "You needed protecting."

"I needed understanding and clarity," she retorted. "And I needed… I wanted, to put my feelings into something I could contain."

He smiled a bit. "Humans love to contain their emotions," he said, looking at her with a curious gleam. "You crave the wild ambitions and the crazy feelings, but bottle up those who express either too deeply. You are envious of those who can love with abandon, dance with such freedom, but inside you want to be doing it too."

She looked at him and sighed. "I can't deny that."

"Don't deny it at all," he said, now crawling towards her. She blinked and he was leaning into her face. "Don't deny any of it."

"Sebastian," she breathed.

"Mey-Rin," he responded.

Her lips danced over his and she backed a step, he reached out and pulled her back.

"I will never hurt you."

"Yet you are the essence of evil."

He gave a small laugh. "Yes, I am. But I can also feel other emotions. Lust. Desire. Protection. Possession. Need. Love." He smiled and kissed her cheek. "I feel them all deeply as I feel the darkness. I am not light, and I am a little less dark as I used to be," he chuckled. He cupped her chin and swiped a thumb over her lips. "There. There you are my Dignified Little Warrior. That's what you are, pure love and pure hate all in one beautifully wrapped package."

She surged forward and kissed him, suddenly wanting nothing but his lips on hers. She fought for air as she slowly pulled back. "I want to give you everything," she sighed. "But it has already been taken."

She let the tears slip down her face and his fingers wiped them up and brought her to his chest. He kissed her head and she felt as if he wanted to not let her go. Mey-Rin sighed; that was fine by her.

"I am a specialty in broken objects," he whispered into her hair finally. "The young master, Finny, Bard, you - hell, myself." He pulled back again and looked at her. "We are all broken, but we are finding our way to deal with the brokenness. I told you, I am selfish - I want you. I want your broken past. I want your bright future. I want the young master's as well, but you," he sighed and eyed her, "you are the strongest woman I have met and I want that. I need that. I have wanted to be that strong at my weakest, and you - out of all the lifetimes - have shown me how to walk with the demons and the brightness of the future."

There was a moment of stillness and Mey-Rin brought her hands to his face, and looked into his eyes. They were bright and pleading, bright and desiring, bright and loving. She blinked and focused on all the small details, some clear, some not, but the one thing that was very clear was she didn't mind if he wasn't as human as he appeared, if he wasn't quiet the same kind of monster she had grown up to be, if he was that in between, needed redemption and yet fought against it, feeling like punishment was appropriate, all in equal measures - like her.

Like her.

She was living in the in-between as he had said before. And now, standing at the foot of the bed, being held in arms of unknown strength, the spark of something once more spilled into her mind. The moment when she had let herself believe, as a young, naive girl, that she would be able to find a man who would rescue her, hold her, be the only thing they would see. And now, now in the space of a breath, Mey-Rin brought that small girl from the depths of where she had sunk so quickly after learning no one would rescue her, no one would keep her safe, no one would defend her, and presented the man she looked at, to her broken childhood self.

"I have been looking all my life for you too."


	26. Chapter 26

The young master glanced at her as she brought his afternoon tea. "No Sebastian?" he asked, going back to reading his paper.

"No, sir. He is out."

"Humph," he said, turning the page again. "You seem calmer."

She poured the tea and smiled a bit. "Yes, sir."

"Mey-Rin," the Earl said placing the paper on the desk and turning to her. "Your glasses."

"Oh, sorry sir," she said, and automatically reached into her hair and stilled, and blushed. Sebastian had taken them before he left. "I must have misplaced them. I'm so sorry sir!"

He waved a hand dismissively and smiled. "Don't be. It's a nice change. I wonder why you continue to wear them when it is obviously a discomfort."

"Because you gave them to me, it was my first present I ever got I didn't have to pay for," she replied quietly. She saw his eyes widen for a moment and then settle into its normal passive look. "Is there anything else, sir?"

He sipped his tea and replaced it on the saucer. "Yes." He sat back and steepled his fingers, regarding her for a moment like a true boss, looking at her as if she was interesting and new. "Sebastian. You seem to be much more comfortable with him. He, too, has become a bit different since he rescued you."

Mey-Rin bowed her head, not sure what she was feeling besides embarrassed. "I'm sorry if our closeness has effected our jobs."

"No, no, I'm not saying that," he said. "You two have had a special relationship, as do he and I. Of course our relationship was born out of my desperation and his desire to fix the situation quiet completely. That, I'm afraid, is a never ending quest," he said, absentmindedly. He got up and moved to the window and turned around and smiled. "We perhaps have the same relationship with the same man."

She blushed madly; she really hoped not. To be in love - in love! - with a man who was also in love with the young master - their employer? There were so many improper situations that flooded her mind she felt her nose begin to drip. She placed a sleeve up to stem the flow of blood. "Sir, I… I may have to disagree," she said, quiet astonishing herself as she said the words.

"Oh?" He turned and saw her sleeve up by her nose and came around and handed her a napkin that was left from his sweets earlier. "Explain. What has happened?"

"Nothing improper! Mister Sebastian has never done anything improper - oh dear! Neither have I! Oh, don't think of anything like that." She burst into tears, the need to tell someone, have her inner dreamer shout and be heard, forced the next words past her lips even before she could stop them. "I love him! I love the man, the monster, the protector, the future he represents!"

And she turned and fled, not looking and ran into the solid mass of the one she had shouted about. She looked up and squeaked, quickly darting around him, but not missing the feelings his face and eyes transmitted back to her.

He felt the same about her.


	27. Chapter 27

The knock on her door made her sit very still and stare very hard at the door. It happened again and then the door opened slowly; a tuff of unkempt yellow hair peeked through the opening.

"Mey-Rin?" Finny asked in his hesitant voice. "Can I come in?"

She let out her breath and nodded. "Please, do, I… I need to talk to someone. You and Bard are my only friends," she said, twisting her quilt in her hands.

Finny took a seat on the bed, and smiled. "You and Bard are my only friends too. Mister Sebastian and the young master are kind and listen, but I don't think they care for my ramblings sometimes. Or Bard - last time, he told me to get cigarettes from the next village, and I did. I came back and he was smoking one! He had told me that he had just finished his last pack!" He frowned and shook his head. "I guess only you really care for me."

Mey-Rin's heart sank for the boy. "Bard cares for you. I think he doesn't know how to express it. So he is a bit rough. But he has a kind heart. And Mister Sebastian," she paused and looked at the door, as if he was going to materialize. For a moment she pursed her lips; he was something not them. He was something different. She believed in demons and angels, and he was both. He had said that he himself was both. She looked up as a hand laid on hers. "Oh Finny!"

She quietly sobbed in his shoulder as the boy held her, as he patted her back, and whispered that she was okay now, no one was going to hurt her, trying to find words of comfort. Mey-Rin pulled back and sighed, the deep gash in her heart had been healing for four years, and now, now it was once more tearing. And she feared the same one who stitched her up was also tearing her apart.

"Mister Sebastian told me how you and he found me," she said finally. It was a better explanation than what she had actually witnessed, felt, and for a moment she went back to the clearing, the feeling of arms holding her body, Finny's eyes wild and pleading.

"I was so scared. Mister Sebastian told me you would be fine, he believed it, and brought you back. I know he did," Finny said, his voice small and soft. "He told me you were strong and would recover. He sat here, in this chair, and on the bed, and near you, until you woke and were able to sit on your own." He smiled and looked away, "I wished I had the strength to have done that." He laughed and Mey-Rin smiled at the irony. The physically strongest of the household, and he was not as emotionally strong as she was, as Sebastian was.

"I'm sorry I scared you," she said finally, placing a hand on his cheek. "The past three months have scared me too. At times I felt as if I was back in the cellar, and I would not get out. Some nights I woke and shrunk back from Mister Sebastian as he walked around my bed. I didn't want to take my medicine, I didn't want to be cured from it either. I wanted the safety and warmth it brought. But I needed the freedom more. I needed the freedom I have been working so hard to deserve, back," she ended in a whisper.

Finny looked at her and she saw the same unspoken desires reflected. "We have been slaves too long, Mey-Rin," he said, in a surprisingly strong and certain tone. "We have freedom here. So much! I can run and jump and play! You can prepare the house and make it beautiful and inviting, decorate and clean it how you wish. The young master and Mister Sebastian are the ones who have let us have this - we need to take it. Take what we want - like those who took what they wanted from us. I don't mean be cruel back then, to others, but only wanted to be alive. Be alive!"

He jumped up and off the bed, the floor and bed shaking a bit. "Run with me Mey-Rin!" And he yanked the door open and smiled, giggling as he lept into the hallway. "Common!"

She let a laugh flow over her lips as she pulled up her dress and dashed after the boy. She laughed as she saw him down the stairs and she let her perfect balance and sight guide her down the steep stairs, after him, one staircase after another. They ran past the young masters study and she paused, watching as Finny continued down the main hall, to the yard he maintained the best he could. She turned and tip-toed to the door, peaking through the cracked open door.

Sebastian was standing and the young master as well, they were talking in low voices and the young master turned, walking back to his favorite spot by the window. Sebastian turned his head and met her lurking gaze. His swift smile and well placed finger on his lips told her he knew she was there, and didn't mind.

"Young master," he said, pulling his eyes from hers. "I have a request."

"Oh?"

"Would you permit me to take Mey-Rin back to London?"

She shook her head but he wasn't looking at her anymore.

"Did you not scare her enough out in the woods?" the Earl turned and shook his head a bit. "She was paler then normal, and has been barely able to concentrate on her job for the past few weeks. Did you tell her?"

"No, my lord, I would not be able to do that to her."

"Because you love her."

Sebastian seemed to stand a bit stiffer and Mey-Rin saw the two men looking at one another. She held her breath.

"I do have deep affections that can be called love, for her, yes."

"You are so eloquent when a simple 'yes' would do," the young master sighed. "And why back to London? Has she not had enough torture - both from that city and you?"

Mey-Rin stilled. Sebastian turned a bit and caught her eye again. "I suppose that is true, but she is… in a delicate point in her recovery. I think seeing the place of her broken past burn is what she needs."

The young master regarded him for a moment and walked back to stand before the taller butler. Mey-Rin saw a strange gleam in the Earl's eye as he took a breath. "And if she asks, would you burn the whole city?"

Sebastian smiled and sent a shiver of fear and delight through Mey-Rin. "If she asks, yes."

"A devotion like that without a contract," the young master chuckled. "A demon in love. Oh how hell could be frozen right now."


	28. Chapter 28

She found herself in the city, once more. With Sebastian by her side, once more. And once more, she stood across the street from the home she had been kept in for longer than ten years - had she ever left mentally? She shuttered even as Sebastian placed his warm, wool coat over hers. The snow had started early this year and she usually loved how it clung to everything, so possessively and passionately. She gave a small sigh and watched as the small wind took her breath away.

"Are you ready, Mey-Rin?"

She nodded and felt the gloved hand on hers, seeking permission to hold it, seeking permission to be intimate. She glanced down and watched as her fingers spread, and his did too, and then laced them, stitched them - together. She looked up at the bright eyes of Sebastian and slowly smiled. Together.

It was as if Finny and Sebastian had the same notion of being wild and free, abandoning what others said should be done, was what she needed to do to be able to move into a future, a future with the man who showed her a side of him she was positive no one else knew. Except the young master. She was sure he knew, was sure he was why Sebastian was there.

"You are thinking too hard," he whispered as they walked to the house. "May I take that worry away?"

"I'm not sure you want to," she said. She looked up at him and then at the homes around them. "I don't think you would find any pleasant, much like the places we are surrounded by."

"I have been in worse," he said, softly and opening the door to the now shell of a house. No one protested as she walked slowly in and he closed the door. "I have caused worse thoughts to be made about me."

She glanced away. "They are not bad, Mister Sebastian," she said, making sure to keep him above her in her mind. "It's just, all this," she swept her hand and looked at the mess. "It's just a shell, a cage, a fake life of sad people who kept going on, hoping for freedom and happiness. And in the end…"

"They found what they really were looking for - a way to end the pain," he growled darkly. "And they wanted to be ended in the pure bliss of a life lived in torture. They tortured themselves and then others," he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Taking too much and not wishing to give. Because if they gave, even a little, they could become taken advantage of. Best be the top then the bottom."

"I want to be free," she whispered. She pushed a stack of papers and watched them fall, scatter, flutter into another pile, and making it lean. She kicked the empty dishes, listening to it shatter. "I want the pain to be gone, Sebastian," she said, flinging the coats off and shoving the chairs out of her way. She felt the boiling rage of her inner child and the scared woman she had become, tumble out. Free. Free. FREE!

She tore the pictures off the mantle. She found a broken chair and smashed it into splinters over the couch. She punched the wall and was satisfied when her hand went through and nothing but a gap yawned at her. She went into the kitchen and tore open all the cabinets, throwing dishes, pots, pans, utensils - all clattering and loud and smashing, and freeing. She turned and marched up the stairs, staring at the steps as they creaked. She stepped on the loudest one, the one she avoided. She stomped on it. She heard a crack. She backed down a stair and looked at it.

"You took my freedom." And she smashed the step in half. She leapt over it, and found Sebastian on the top of the stairs - she wasn't scared anymore at his appearance. If he was really what she thought, was not a man, was a… a evil and good spirit all wrapped into one body she could touch, she didn't care how much light or darkness he possessed. He was everything at that moment. He was a solid place for her to wrap her arms around and lean her head into, dream of, dream with, dream into…

"I love you," she breathed as she stood a hairs breath from him. She looked up and smiled. "I give you this broken heart of mine, to keep safe and help me mend it."

He bent down and cupped her chin. "And I shall cherish it. Please, take mine as well, as a gift, wholly broken and scared, but now free of the chains of fear."

She kissed him, bold and proud, feeding into the wild freedom she was desperate to reclaim - or find for the first time. His arms held her and she could dance, sing, spin - with him. Only him.

Mey-Rin pulled back and fought the urge to turn away from his eyes for fear they would turn and become hard when she looked back. Hard like Anthony's when he placed the glass of sweetened water to her lips, hard like George's as he took her arms and shackled them tighter, hard like Samuel's when he pulled her legs around him and took her, hard like Davis as he pulled her dress up, hard like Gregory as he yanked her hair and pulled her down to his room. Hard because she had opened up and abandoned safety for the arms of a demon for the arms of a man for the arms of someone who loved her, despite everything. Because everything.

"Will you hold my broken body a bit longer?"

Sebastian picked her up and cradled her like a child to his chest. "Forever if you ask."


	29. Chapter 29

She watched in fascination as the house burned around them. The flames were hot, and threw heat on her face, but did not burn her. She passed her hand in the flames and heard Sebastian chuckle. She turned and he was smiling, wide, angular and boldly watching her. His eyes were hungry. His eyes were dangerous. And he laughed as she pulled him closer, feeling the controller of the flames pull her closer. He kissed the top of her head, and sighed.

Mey-Rin had asked if he could destroy only the insides of this home - not harm others. He had laughed and produced a dancing flame in his hand, watching her.

"Are you not curious?" He had asked. She had hesitated and then nodded. "Demons can control the darkest elements. Fire is my specialty. I do like how they lick everything away so completely."

She had watched as he moved his hand, building the flame. And she had calmly placed his hand on the banister, instantly lighting it up, the trail of flames running down the stairs.

"Burn it and take it back to the bare bones - leave no trace of the men who took me. Leave no trace of my life before I met you."

He had swiftly taken his hand, still with a flame dancing in it and placed it on the ground, kneeling before her. He had looked up, his eyes deep red and wild in delight. "Yes, my Lady," and the flames had encircled them, building high and hot and dangerous. But she placed her hands on his shoulders and bent, kissing him, feeling wild and safe.

She felt as if she was free to ask him anything, and he would reply with complete honesty. "Did you suffer as you waited to rescue me?"

The look that came across his face was the answer enough, and his reply was a breath. "Every moment, with every piece of my body."

She pulled him close, and searched his eyes. "Good."

And she had pulled him into her chest, feeling the way his head turned, his arms wrapped around her waist, grounding them to the spot, even as the flames slowly crept up the walls, the few items in the rooms around her sizzled and let out agonizing sighs as they too died. All her memories seemed to be licked by the flames and she closed her eyes, clinging to the kneeling man in front of her, holding on for dear life like a scared child. Holding on to a man whose face was etched into her mind, more vividly then anyone else's. Holding on the man who promised to be the wild, abandoned, and lover of her heart, body, and soul. She kissed his head, as he had done hers, and took the first possession of her future.

A demon whose love was her redemption.

* * *

 **I hope you enjoyed the journey of looking a bit into Men-Rin's past - my version anyway. I have another Gen(ish) S/M story I may unearth from my writing lab and post. If you like a wee bit of romance with our sexy Demon Butler, and don't mind a GIGANTICALLY long fic, nor that the love interest isn't Mey-Rin, I'd suggest Danny Hyde. Don't let the name fool you - Danny Hyde fits in to the world of Phantomhives rather well.**

 **But seriously - thank you for reading and enjoying. I am humbled as always!**


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